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The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 01

By: TheWanderingCat



Author's note: 

Those of you who may have read my other submissions will already know this but all of my non-erotic stories take place within the same fantasy universe. So if you like this one, try whatever else I might have uploaded here. 

=== 

Chapter One 

When Empress Dawn pulled her eyes from their sockets and threw them into the sky, she had meant it to symbolize her watchfulness over her subjects, no matter where they lived. Days like these made Eldrian wonder whether that could be true. After all, how else could the land look so perfect, so pristine, on a day so otherwise miserable. It had rained during the night, leaving the midday a spattered-clean canvas. Keladesh itself had tidied up for the seeing off. 

The full weight of the afternoon hadn't yet connected. It would, Eldrian had little doubt. But it still felt odd, wrong somehow, that he could feel hollow rather than sad. 

"Master Eldrian," a voice called from the door that looked over the hillside upon which sat his and his father's humble home. 

"Please, just one last look. I don't think I'll see any of this for a while," replied Eldrian. How different might the northern lands look? They were colder, or so he had read. And some folk up there had paler skin from the shorter, darker days. 

His eyes passed over the tangle of trees that sloped down gently towards acres of farmland. Myriad dots of livestock speckled against the green, some in vast masses as their herdsmen drove them on. 

"Apologies, Master Eldrian, but she thinks it may be time," said the apprentice. 

Eldrian nodded and steeled himself. This was an inevitability, he knew. That didn't make it easier. His hands gripped the roots of the oak tree in which he sat cradled. With a groan he pried himself free of the bark and turned to go inside. 

The floorboards of their house creaked in all the usual places as Eldrian trudged through. So too did the shadows and light from outside fall no differently to normal. Almost insulting that their home of some twelve years offered no sign of respect. No acknowledgment of any kind. 

The door to his father's bedroom hung halfway open but Eldrian stepped around it rather than pushing it wider. He heard it creak behind him and only noticed then that the apprentice had followed. 

On the bed, beneath piles of woolen blankets, lay his father. The man's skin had lost much of the normal fairness that a Solar possessed. Instead it looked grey. A bit like a smear of porridge made from too coarse a grain. His eyes were sunken and closed and he lay so deep in the bed that it almost appeared to be swallowing him. 

The symptoms had all pointed to a disease of some sort. Nobody had managed to figure out which. Even Eldrian had poured over their books and others, matching descriptions and finding new possibilities. All had been false hope. 

"His heart is beating but it's nearly too faint even to hear," the healer explained. 

Eldrian nodded. Not long now. He crept closer in, practiced feet maneuvering over the landscape of the floor. The hallway rug's end, that knothole he'd lost a coin down six or seven summers ago, the other rug that lay beneath the bed. He leaned towards his father's face and the frame of the bed dug into his legs. 

"Can he hear me still?" Eldrian asked. 

The healer nodded her head. 

Everyone of us is a Solar, Eldrian realized. But all that healing magic couldn't save him. Of course, he knew light magic didn't work that way. Only medicine, and sound magic on rare occasion, could tackle anything past a disease's symptoms. A small comfort. 

A soft wheeze came from the bed and Eldrian saw that his father's eyes were open. He leaned closer and listened but, for a while, the only sound came in the form of the faintest breathing. 

"I'm s-s... sorry, Anahid," Eldrian's father croaked. 

Eldrian recoiled. "What did he say?" he asked the healer. 

A shrug and a headshake formed the physical reply. Then, "Too whispered for me." 

"That was a name. I'm sorry Anahid," said Eldrian. 

"Your mother?" 

"No." This time Eldrian shook his head. "We don't know anyone called Anahid. At least, I don't. Father. Father, who is Anahid?" 

His eyes were open but blank as he stared at Eldrian. "Ana... Anahid," he breathed. The covers by his side shifted, collapsing as an arm emerged from underneath. The dying man's trembling fingers crawled through the air and fell just short of touching his son's face. "Should have t...t... told you..." he wheezed. "Wrong about... this... I..." Then the bed gave the slightest shake as muscles relaxed. 

"Father?" Eldrian asked. He leaned in closer and peered into a set of empty eyes. "Father? Who's Anahid? Told me what? Tell me now!" 

"You... your..." Seconds passed before the room sighed with one less soul to fill it. 

"I'm here! Tell me now! Father, please! Tell me now! Who's Anahid? Wh— who's Anahid?" 

"He's gone, young master," said the healer. 

"No, he can't be." Not fair. "He had to tell me something. Tell me Father, please." Eldrian twisted around to look at the master and her apprentice in turn. "Did he recognize me? Did he know it was me he was talking to?" 

They didn't move. No words, no actions. No shaking or nodding heads. They only stared with as much acknowledgment as his father had offered. 

Eldrian turned back to the man buried in the bed. His hands shook as he took his father by the shoulders, released, grabbed again. The same question kept flipping through Eldrian's mind. The grief beast tried to rear its head but it choked instead. "Who is Anahid? Don't go, tell me! Father, tell me! I'm here! What did you want to tell me?!" Eldrian gave the man a gentle shake. A harder one. "Who is Anahid?" 

A hand fell on his back. "Master Eldrian, we must not disturb the passed." 

"But he saw this Anahid, not me. Why did you say Anahid, Father, tell me! Why did you wait till it was too late?" cried Eldrian. His eyes began to sting and his throat felt as though it meant to clamp shut. "Who is Anahid?" 

The hand on his back pulled more firmly. Eldrian shoved it away and ran. The home he had known all his life became a blur beneath movement and blinding tears. He had the vague sense that someone might be following him but he couldn't tell who. 

He can't be gone, not yet. He wasn't finished. 

It finally hit him in the garden. He hadn't yet woken up. Even through the tears he could see himself sitting beneath the tree. Father hadn't finished because the dream hadn't let him. He just needed a chance to try again. 

I'm asleep, that's all. This is just a bad dream, Eldrian thought as he ran faster to the spot. I'll wake myself up and it will all be over. 

"What's wrong with him?" asked a panicked voice. 

"Hysterics from grief. Get him under control," panted another. 

A force gripped Eldrian and he ground to a halt. "No!" he cried. "This is a dream! Let me wake up. He didn't see me! It's just a dream!" 

The earth came up fast and slapped him on the side of the head. Even through the pain he ranted. "He needs to tell me! Let me wake up! It's all a dream! It's all a dream!" 

=== 

My dearest Eldrian, 

It seems my time has reached an end. It pains me that I will leave you alone in this world. You're a smart boy and you've made me more proud than you could imagine. But you're a child yet and the Empire has its laws. When the day comes that I am no longer with you, you shall find a new home at the Children of Light orphanage and school. All the arrangements have been made. Our home will be rented until such a time as you have come of age and are ready to inherit it. 

I go now to paradise. 

Eldrian stared at the page a while longer, eyes too glazed over to discern the words through the coach's shakes as it travelled towards the orphanage. He'd read it a dozen times already. The first time had been the worst. Days later, going through Father's room, packing up their life, and finding it tucked into a book on the dresser. That soaring moment of hope for a missing answer found. Then the crippling pits as the final words offered nothing that he hadn't already known or guessed. The last little piece he had of his father, before illness numbed him to sense, and it said nothing. 

Eventually he folded up the yellowing scrap and tucked it back inside his satchel. Sometimes the urge came to ball it up and hurl it out the window but he never did. That wouldn't solve anything, even though it might be suitable. A useless end for a useless note. 

Of course, he had already figured out why the note had nothing. Those final words, that message lost to the final moments, had all been a change of heart brought by the nearness of death. Father had never really meant to tell Eldrian anything. That only made it more curious and himself more frustrated. He forced it out of his mind. 

It doesn't matter. I don't care anymore. You should have told me sooner if it was so important. 

A chest on the back of the coach contained everything else that Eldrian had brought. An entire life reduced to less than half a cubic arm-reach. 

The open window promised to distract Eldrian but when he looked at the scene outside it only reminded him of the days before. They were traveling north and the journey had taken three days already. Plenty of time to grow weary of farmland, hamlets and the occasional fortress that stood guard over its surrounds. A white-frosted mountain range ran to their west. A rainbow of snow to rock to grass and foothills. If he had the desire, perhaps the name for the range would have come to him. The Pillarous Line, maybe, or was that further north? All the maps in his head seemed to have melted together without his notice. 

"We'll be able to see it once we've crossed the next hill," said Paetin, sitting opposite. 

Eldrian glanced at the Skytouched but nothing more. A slight man whose eyes looked as though they meant to retreat inside his head. He had a thin fuzz of hair that could have been black or dark brown, impossible to tell without it being longer. 

"It's quite a sight, even from the ground," Paetin continued. "The folk around used to stare at it from their fields but they've since grown bored of looking. It'll be fresh for you, mind." 

The one-sidedness of the conversation had been the norm for the trip. The only words that Eldrian cared about were the final ones his father had said. He looked at his hand as it clenched the edge of the carriage's window. A chip marred the nail on his thumb. When had that happened? 

"Do you know anyone named Anahid?" Eldrian asked as his eyes glazed over in a fixation on his hand. 

Paetin hummed for a moment. "The name's not ringing to me. Why do you ask?" 

"...No reason." 

The rolling crunch of metal wheels over the gravel-dirt road again took over, along with a dry-thudding beat of hooves. This white symphony had done wonders to stifle the world and keep Eldrian buried in his own thoughts. 

"I know you're hurting, spark. You can't fight it out. You've got to push through, ah?" 

Eldrian heard the words but they weren't true. He still didn't feel the misery or confusion. 

Anahid. 

Why would you leave me like that? he thought and surprised himself at how sharp the words felt. But they were suitable. This person had no business in the final moments of his family. And father had no business raising it. Stupid, all of it, yet important just the same. The way the name had been spoken had left no doubt of that. 

For the first two days of the journey, Eldrian had wondered near endlessly about that name. This morning he found himself awakening with a lot less care to spend on the matter. If it really was important, Father wouldn't have waited until the last conceivable second to feel a flash of regret. So it didn't matter. It couldn't matter and Eldrian wouldn't let it. 

This journey mattered. A trip to some orphanage in the backwater north of the Empire. Why not one of the perfectly good orphanages closer to home? There had to be at least one, right? 

The word stupid came to mind again. He wanted to push the poisonous thought away but it felt more comfortable to keep close. 

You shouldn't have waited, Eldrian growled. Now I'll never find out. And I don't care. 

"Ah, there it is. See? I told you, a wonder of the north. You don't realize how fortunate you are to have a place here." Paetin twisted away from the window and smiled. 

Eldrian locked his eyes on the orphanage. He had to agree with the Skytouched, though he didn't like it. 

The manor of Children of Light stood in two halves on either side of a large, river-run ravine that Eldrian could already see starkly as they grew nearer. The structure on the side farthest had been built nearly a dozen reaches above its brother. Two towers grew among that portion of the home, one large and fitted with many a window that hinted to the life inside. But the other, far thinner, had either its curtains drawn or its windows boarded up. 

Between the cliff sides the manor continued, not content to confine itself to a mere bridge to span the gaps. A long hall hung over the ravine, supported by vast beams connected to the walls of rock. Then came what Eldrian had to presume was the school portion of the manor. More modest in height, as much as four stories could be considered modest. The roof sloped ended and jutted at more angles and points than Eldrian could count from his current vantage. 

An extensive garden surrounded the manor. He could see figures tending all manner of flora, so much of which looked to be fruit-bearing. In fact, there were people everywhere. In the grounds, through the windows, even on the roofs. The latter appeared to be cleaning or fixing up the dark slats that looked weather-worn in places and in need of repair. So too did the stone walls of the manor yearn for care. 

Yet the strangest trait of the manor, one that Eldrian had never seen anyplace before, was the massive net that seemed to close it like a birdcage. It stood above the castle-like walls that rimmed the property, tethered to the battlements and held up by tree-like posts further in. 

"What's that for?" he asked as he pointed to the tangle of ropes or wires, too hard to tell which at this distance. The spaces between were so small that not even a Skytouched could squeeze out. 

Paetin followed the finger and laughed. "The net? Children of Light happens to be on some kind of Vouiareli migration path or hunting stream. Without it they tear up the garden or worse." 

Eldrian had seen several sky snakes in the past but never in the wild. They were massive beasts with plenty of teeth. The way Paetin spoke made it sound like 'worse' had happened prior. Eldrian shuddered at the thought of a Vouiareli swooping down from the sky and whisking him away on its wings of wind. 

The gates to Children of Light stood tall and flush with the surrounding framework for the netting. A crest had been crafted at its center, depicting two Kelads bowing towards a shining sun between them. The sun, as in so many other instances, had to represent Empress Dawn. 

A gap formed in the crest as the wrought iron gates swung outwards. Eldrian expected them to make a terrible creak on their hinges but they didn't. They were silent as a whisper. The absence of anyone opening them only added to the peculiarity but the obvious explanation was that a Solar someplace was swinging them with levitation. 

Walls of hedges lined the driveway that looped around before the manor's doors. Beyond them Eldrian could hear the activity of the gardeners. Snips of shears and thunks of mattocks filled the air, but no birds. The only signs of non-Kelad life came from the droning hum of crickets and bees. 

The Earthborn, who had been driving their coach, jumped down as Eldrian exited and moved to retrieve his luggage. Meanwhile, Eldrian stared up at the manor and the large, circular window that gazed down at him like a glassy eye. The sun's glare masked whatever room lay beyond. Without knowing why, his vision wandered towards the smaller of the manor's towers. Did someone live there? It had more than one room, judging by the way it jutted out in places. 

"Alright, spark, enough gawking. Let's head in and get you settled," Paetin crunched past on the gravel, preceded by the Earthborn. 

Eldrian lingered a second longer. A song had crept in on the breeze and he couldn't tell where from. A Vocal, most likely, using their voice to see something distant. It came almost as a soothing sigh with the slightest echo. 

=== 

She watched the boy as he trudged inside, just as she watched all the new arrivals. He looked boring. New and afraid, yes, but boring too. Still, she promised herself to look again some time later just in case things changed. 

Instead she turned her voice, and vision, to the stable hands that were tending to the horses as they recovered from their journey. If any could hear her, they gave no sign. Some were habituated to her watching by now. Others jumped or flinched or kept on working with a tenacious resolve to pretend that they were, in fact, alone. 

These stable hands did exactly that. Their brows creased as they cleaned hooves and their jaws flapped faster to drown her voice with their conversation. Nobody ever seemed to welcome her. Of course, she anticipated nothing less. 

=== 

It wasn't what he had been expecting. Twenty to a room above the cellar but below the ground. The gaps between the stone bricks, each a different size and shape and each nearly as big as he, were slimy with the damp. There were several oil lanterns hanging from the roof but they did a poor job at keeping anything lit. 

None of the boys, with whom he would share the space for the next two years, were present at the moment. 

"They'll not be in the dorms till after dinner when it's lights out," Paetin had explained. 

"Are they in their classes now?" Eldrian wondered. 

"They're all about the manor doing their chores." 

"Chores?" 

"This is a big place and we can't afford people to maintain it. As way of earning your stay, there'll be chores for you to do." With that out of the way, Paetin had left. 

Once again Eldrian found himself struggling not to drown beneath the tide of his solitary thoughts. Perfect, father. Send me away to labour. 

On the wall by the door hung a large board upon which lines and writing had been scratched out in chalk. When he moved closer, he realized it detailed the distribution of chores for the week. The days ran along the top while the work went down the left side. In the middle were all the names. 

It struck Eldrian how many chores there seemed to be. Gardening, kitchen duty, general cleaning, general repairs, pest extermination, stable hands. Most of the chores had broad titles like these and a name accompanying that Eldrian presumed was the person to which the workers would report. His eyes moved down the board until he reached the bottom of the list of chores and he frowned. Girl in the tower, the final chore read. Only one kid seemed to be assigned it, the same for each day of the week. 

On the seventh day of the cycle there were no names under any chore. None but the girl in the tower, that is. So sundays were free. When did schooling fit in? 

Other than the board, the dormitory didn't contain much to occupy his mind. Twenty beds, ten against each wall, with a chest at the end of each. Well, the luckier ones, of which Eldrian happened to be, owned a chest. Most of the children here must have come from poorer backgrounds, judging by the battered boxes in which they kept their worldly possessions. The worst off looked as though they had been cobbled together from scrap wood, even lacking a lid. But father had always told him not to judge others lest he find himself rewarded with the same adversity. Although, given the recent turn of events, that advice hadn't done much good. 


The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 01



The lumps in Eldrian's bed had him yearning for the one he had left behind. Focus on the positive, he told himself. At least the straw mattress beat sleeping on a bedroll. 

An occasional drip from somewhere in the hallway outside provided the only indication that time hadn't stopped. To keep his mind off things, he started counting the faint 'plip's. At four-hundred and seventy two, a bell started to clang from someplace in the manor. The sharp, metallic noise reverberated through the stone hallway. 

The door gave a slight whine as Eldrian opened it. 

"First dinner call!" someone bellowed in the distance. 

Footsteps started to thump across the wooden floor of the manor's ground level. Presuming that the dinner call included him, Eldrian closed the door behind and padded along the moist bricks of the hallway. 

He retraced his steps towards the ground floor but the noises soon carried him to a different part of the manor. Strange that he hadn't seen anyone yet. Then again, if the board had been any indication, they were all out working and likely coming from a different place. A suspicion confirmed when he followed the sounds through a doorway and ended up in the kitchen. 

The chaos that resulted from preparing a meal for an entire orphanage of children and adults kept Eldrian from being spotted at first. He started to back away but another Solar, roughly his age and whose near-white hair looked soaked with sweat, snapped at him and waved him through the door on the opposite side. 

The dining room at last. Four long tables were cramped into the space. Lanterns hung from above and the child residents of the manor were shadowing the walls as they milled in. Some glanced his way, most crammed towards a table and sat down to the food already served. 

If there was any designated seating arrangement in place, Eldrian couldn't guess it. He took the safe bet instead, finding a spot farthest from the doors through which everyone seemed to be entering. The second he sat down, an Earthborn shoved him away. 

"Shrimps down there," she grunted. 

Eldrian didn't find his feet straight away. The girl had lost interest in him already but he hadn't in her. She had a thick layer of soil covering both hands and her clothes looked in need of a wash or, better yet, a fire. Even her green hair, speckled with flecks of brown, looked a mess. 

"What?!" the girl snapped when she realized he hadn't left. Her eyes were fierce but she looked weary underneath. 

"N-nothing." Eldrian scrambled to his feet and sped towards the other end of the dining room. The flood of children had largely abated but a few places remained for him to choose from. Not wanting a repeat of his first encounter with the residents, Eldrian sat at the very end where, hopefully, nobody would join him. 

At last he had a chance to see what they were serving. A quick inspection of the bowl before him suggested some kind of stew, though there didn't appear to be any meat in it. That made sense given the Earthborn present. He tasted the liquid and recoiled. Whoever had made it had been extremely enthusiastic with the pepper. Part of him wanted to get as far away from the stew as possible. Unfortunately, whether by accident or intent, someone coming in through the door behind shoved his head so hard he landed face first in the bowl. 

"Hoy shrimp." 

Eldrian's eyes refocused through the peppery haze as he lifted his head again. A Skytouched had sat down opposite him. The flit looked to be a little younger than Eldrian himself, though you wouldn't know it at first from under the streak of dust upon his face. Almost as if a particularly filthy crevice had sneezed on him. 

"Shrimp?" 

"You're new here, ah? If you're new, you get called shrimp. It'll stop after a while, doh' worry," the boy explained. 

"How long is a while?" 

"About three months," he said with a grin before slurping some stew off a wooden spoon whose handle was decaying from water damage. "I'm Yoled." 

Eldrian took the hand offered him and shook it. "Eldrian," he said. 

Yoled frowned. "That's a grown name. You should be Eldy instead. Once you're done being shrimp, that is." 

Eldrian didn't offer anything on that, instead focusing on eating. 

"There's a bunch of things I have to tell you," Yoled chattered on. "I stopped being a shrimp about a month ago but after that you have to be the one to explain things to the new shrimps. Which dorm are you in, anyway?" 

Eldrian mentally retraced the path he had taken here and pointed downwards to the south-east. "That one down there, I think." 

Yoled twisted around to check as though he would be able to see the room through the walls and floor. "Oh, same as me. So you must be... thirteen?" 

"Uh huh." In truth, Eldrian didn't feel much like talking. The boy talked with the slack accent that northerners all seemed to have. It made him sound lazy and stupid. 

"Right, they put us together by age. Once you're fifteen you go to the dorm overlooking the garden. Kind of like a birthday present, ah?" 

"I guess so." 

"All the kids younger than ten are in the dorm nextdoor. They used to be right above us but some of the youngest ones would wet themselves in the night and it started leaking through the floorboards and dripping inna everybody's stew." 

Eldrian cringed, pulled the spoon from his mouth and scraped teeth across his tongue. "Thanks." 

Yoled laughed and said, "No problem, ah. There's a lot of things like that you have to look out for. When they say lights out, they really mean everyone stay in your dorms but you still have to be quiet. Also, don't go anyplace if you're not assigned to work there, especially not the girl's tower." 

"Is that where the girls' dorms are?" Eldrian asked. He assumed the genders would be separate. The numerous books that he had read during his lonely days at home had suggested such a separation was commonplace. 

"Na, those are all over the place." He leaned in and whispered under the din of chatter and slurping children. "The girl's tower is where they keep the Marisin." 

"Marisin?" 

"Ah, it's lids for someone who murders by magic." 

"You mean Litides." 

"That's the one." 

"But Litides doesn't work like that. If you say it out loud it becomes Auddes and means something else." 

Yoled blinked. "How would that work? It'd just be confusing." 

Eldrian didn't feel much like arguing over the intricacies of the Vocal language at the moment so he didn't. "What do you mean they keep a Marisin in the tower?" 

"Just that. She's a Vocal who's locked up in the second tower. But Sire Mastro still wants her to be fed and taken care of so every month one of the kids gets assigned it. It's an easy job but nobody ever volunteers because... you know. You also have to be at least twelve." Yoled spooned around his stew, gathering the solids together. 

Eldrian stared at the boy. It had to be a joke. Some kind of initiation test that they played on the new arrivals. Why would there be some kind of magical killer locked up in an orphanage? 

"It's not a joke," said Yoled when challenged on it. "Ask anybody, ah. You'll see her one day. Sometimes they let her out so she can walk around the garden." 

"Let her out? But aren't they afraid she'll kill somebody?" Eldrian asked. Despite the nerves he should have been feeling, his blood ran a little hotter instead. As if everything else weren't enough, father thought it best to send him to an orphanage that housed some kind of magical maniac. 

Yoled shook his head. "She hasn't killed anyone while I've been here. I think the last time it happened was six years ago. And it wasn't one of the kids, either, it was one of Sire Mastro's men. I doh' know what she did to him, nobody talks about it." 

If those words had meant to come as a comfort, they didn't. "But why's she here. She should be in a prison with other murderers." 

"Na, Marisin, not murderer. Besides, she's an orphan too. She's about your age, I think. Maybe a bit older." 

"But she's only a kid. How did she learn to murder with magic?" The very concept had never occurred to Eldrian before. Magic was meant to be a force of good, not destruction. But now that thinking seemed almost naive. 

Yoled shrugged, mumbled something along the lines of "She just did," then lifted his bowl and began licking the inside clean. When he finished, a tiny brown smear occupied the tip of his nose. It took several seconds before he noticed. 

"Who's Sire—" 

"Watch it!" someone shouted towards the other end of the room. A crash followed a second later as a bowl of stew shattered on the floor, flinging fragments of baked clay in all directions. 

In an instant, two orphans were wrestling between the tables. A spark had an Earthborn sprout by the head but the latter quickly twisted out and they exchanged clumsy blows. Many of the other kids jumped atop the benches and began whooping and cheering, some even chanting the names of the combatants. 

Eldrian watched the exchange and could only marvel. How quickly Children of Light had gone from a school and orphanage to a prison. It didn't help that there were Vouiareli nets outside to cage them in. 

What is this place? 

Yoled had joined in with the audience. Footsteps thundered down the hall behind Eldrian and he twisted around just in time to see a Solar woman burst into the room. She pointed both hands, and the suncrests embedded in her palms, at the brawlers. The fight came to an end in an instant as the woman levitated both children apart. Just as quickly, everyone else fell back into their seats and froze. 

"Right!" she snapped. "Punishment for the both of you!" 

Apparently the woman didn't intend for her prisoners to walk as she strode from the room with them floating in tow. If either child had been capable of struggling, none attempted to. Eldrian watched the magic display, eyes wide. To be able to levitate not one but two people at once, without them capable of the slightest bit of movement, was no small feat. 

"Sire Mastro runs the orphanage," Yoled whispered. "This is his manor. But that was Miss Belamy Vansen, also known as chief of child wranglers. That's not her real title but it's the one all of us use." 

With the disturbance resolved, the rest of dinner passed in relative peace. The chatter that had fallen away slowly crept back in until it had reached its original levels. Yoled kept talking with Eldrian doing his minimum but the conversation slowly went to lighter subjects. Favourite foods, favourite games, where both had lived when their parents were still around. Yoled once had free run of the docks of Kachtikar while his mother and father fished until a storm far at sea had claimed the both of them. 

"Empress Dawn decided one day that she wanted to round up all the orphan kids and put them someplace better. Sprouts, sparks, flits, pips, didn't matter, we got sent anyplace with room," Yoled explained as they walked together from the dining hall. Throngs of children milled down this passage and that towards their dorms. "It's better here so it's good she did it. But I miss the smell of the docks a bit." 

"Better? I don't want to be here," Eldrian muttered. 

"Why not? Where could you go besides? There's lots of places to stay in the city but nobody likes us running round anymore. Nobody pays hungry kids any mind. And how could you find anyplace where you were, ah?" 

This place is a prison, he wanted to say. Am I the only one who can see it? 

=== 

The other boys of the dorm had arrived first so there were plenty eyes to notice that a newcomer was among them. 

"Hoy, who's this?" Another spark, towards the back of the room, stood up and rested his hands on his hips. They were balled into fists. 

"I'm Eldrian." 

"Wrong!" someone shouted. 

The first kid agreed. "Ah, you're shrimp. Dinjoo tell him yet, old-shrimp?" 

"He must've forgot," said Yoled. Then he nudged Eldrian. "And I told you, Eldrian sounds too old, you should be Eldy." 

"I'm Bossman," said the spark. "If you're in this dorm, you listen to me. Ah, shrimp?" 

"Fine," Eldrian mumbled. Another loud northerner with an obnoxious accent. Worse than Yoled's, even. But after the altercation earlier, he didn't feel like arguing to the point of being wrangled by Miss Belamy. 

"Good, at least you already know you're up the back." Bossman pointed regardless. 

Eldrian shuffled towards his bed and discovered that Yoled had the one opposite. 

The lights out call came soon after and the chatter of the boys fell to a low murmur that echoed around the walls. A few had set up a game of pebbles between the beds. They appeared to be using gravel from the driveway and bits of string or stick to mark out the board and game pieces. Yoled wandered off to talk to another kid. 

The dorm had a strangely lively air about it, despite the quiet. Never before had Eldrian been in a room with so many others his age and he hadn't really had friends back home. The feeling almost tried to lift him up and tell him this place wasn't all that bad. He pushed it back instead. 

He couldn't hear any drips to mark time's passage. Even so, it must have been just over an hour before the sound began. The same that Eldrian had heard as he walked the driveway up to the manor. 

A soothing song whispered into his ears like ghostly fingers on the wind. He heard it more clearly this time around. A young voice. A girl's voice. It flowed in and out of hearing like waves on the ocean. Rising as a curious hum before sinking away again. 

"Who's voice is that?" Eldrian asked at last. He sat up on his bed and looked across the children that had turned to him. Only two Vocals among them and both were boys, of course. Yet he felt sure that the voice he heard even now belonged to a girl. 

"What voice?" Yoled asked. 

"You can't hear it? Listen." 

Everyone fell silent for a moment until Bossman spoke up. "Is it a girl's voice?" he asked. 

"Ah," Eldrian replied. 

"It's the girl in the tower. She's looking at you."



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 02



"The Outfliers are coming for an inspection again." 

"Again? Hmm, I'm starting to think they might suspect us of some wrongdoing... Have the orphans said much to them in the past?" 

"Nothing unsavory, sire." 

"And what of the men and women? Could any be spinning stories down in River Run over a mug?" 

"I can't know for certain but I should think not. Why would they make things up?" 

"Then perhaps the guards know about our prize in the tower. At any rate, I'll leave the details of the visit in your hands. When is he due?" 

"Some time next week. Dawn wants to make the visits as much a surprise as possible." 

"She can try. And we have a new arrival, correct? See that he knows the process so that incidents are kept to a minimum." 

=== 

Eldrian's stomach turned over when Bossman's words finally registered. "She's what?" he asked, hoping he was joking. 

From Bossman's eyes, wide and void of the strength he'd shown earlier, he clearly wasn't. "She's looking at you! You have to hide, hurry!" 

With the girl's singing still present in his ears, Eldrian turned his head this way and that in search of shelter. All they had were beds. Run and hide, just like the rabbits back home. 

His legs kicked into motion and he flew towards one of the beds on the opposite side of the room, right next to the door. The voice faded slightly as he moved and vanished completely when he dove beneath the shambled, wooden frame. 

All the kids in the dorm would be watching him now but Eldrian didn't care. Not when, any second, the Marisin's song might find him again. He could hear his heart beating, a frantic badum, badum, badum. But slowly the drumming sank away and the singing returned. He jumped in fright, hitting his head on one of the boards above him. 

"Agh!" Eldrian groaned. He heard a laugh echo in his ears, then the singing vanished and all was quiet. For a moment, at least. 

"Ahaha!" roared a chorus of laughter from the room. 

Eldrian pulled himself out from under the bed, only to be greeted by every boy in the dorm rolling around and cackling to themselves. 

"That never gets old!" one laughed. 

Another merely pointed, laughter stupefying his words as his face turned red. 

"They always fall for it!" cried Bossman. He collapsed on one of the beds and hammered his fist against the mattress. 

"I don't understand..." said Eldrian once a gap arose for him to speak. "What's so—" 

"Look, he banged his head as well!" A sprout pointed his dirty fingers to the bump forming on Eldrian's forehead and the uproar started anew. 

He sighed and sat down, not on his bed but he doubted that anybody would care at the moment. Almost a minute passed and still the second wave of laughter showed no signs of slowing down. Some of the children were reduced to wheezing messes on the floor as they tried to catch their breath so they could laugh again. 

Suddenly the door shook upon its hinges as someone pounded on it from outside. "Hoy, quiet down in there or the lot've you'll go to punishment!" 

The speed at which the room went from full volume to total silence was almost deafening in itself. Nobody dared speak until they heard the subtle slaps of booted feet moving away. When at last that sound faded too, Yoled piped up. 

"Ha, all the home shrimps fall for that." 

"Fall for what?" asked Eldrian. 

Bossman, along with half the other kids, pursed his lips in an effort not to crack again. "The girl's all the way up in her tower, she can't hurt anyone." 

"But she's a Vocal, if she can see us with her voice, she can get us with her magic. They're the same thing." Eldrian had always had plenty of time to read up on the basics of magic, both light and sound. And the theory behind them. And the stories, experiments and contests involving them. All the time in the world. 

Almost everyone shook their heads as Bossman explained. "Nah, there's too many floors, shrimp. And she has a thing on her head that... its this... Hoy Ajan, you took care of her before, explain the thing." 

Everyone looked at Ajan, a pip with green-splatted occumarks on his hood. The boy held his hands up near his head as he explained. "It's this helmet thing, like what a soldier wears. Except this one's bigger and it covers her ears so she can't hear anything. Not even a thunderbolt crashing on the roof. And if she can't hear, she can't do her spells right or they might hurt her instead." 

"That works?" Eldrian frowned. Nothing in his books had covered this side of sound magic. 

"Ah, home shrimp, donjoo know anything?" Bossman snapped. "And she's really good at magic but it works anyway. She can't do anything and that just makes her angrier. If they ever let her cast a spell, she'd kill everyone." 

A wave of murmured agreement passed through the boys as they all nodded their heads over the girl's wicked intent. 

"That's how she killed that man six years ago," said Bossman. "She blew him up with magic because he spilled her breakfast." 

"Na!" someone shouted. "She made him pop like a tomato." 

"That's stupid. She threw him out the window so hard that he flew through the net and got cut up into a hundred pieces." 

Bossman waved for silence. "Most of us weren't here when it happened but we've heard Sire Mastro's folk talking. Now it's us orphans who have to feed her. And she can't get us with her magic but home shrimps like you never understand that." The spark finished by jabbing his finger at Eldrian. 

The implication seemed to be that hiding had been a stupid thing to do. But, at least in Eldrian's mind, that made no sense. Why not hide when, for all you knew, a Marisin was lining you up for magical annihilation? 

Eldrian went back to lying on his bed as the dorm returned to its peaceful calm. Nobody harassed him any further. He kept expecting to hear singing as the girl looked at him again. But she didn't. 

=== 

Porridge for breakfast and nothing to accompany it. Never before had Eldrian stomached porridge without at least a bit of fruit to add some flavor. This was little more than oats boiled in water. In fact, it was exactly that. Too much water, to make things worse. 

"I'm cleaning rooms this week," said Yoled, smacking his lips once he finished. "They put shrimps on something different for every day of the first week and a bit. That way you know how everything's done." 

"What about the classes?" Eldrian asked. 

Yoled laughed, mumbled something about home shrimps, and, without explaining anything, left the dining hall amid the throngs of other children. 

Unsure of what to do, Eldrian stayed seated until he was the only one left. A man stepped through the fading exodus of pips, sparks, sprouts and flits and looked at him. 

"You're the new spark, ah?" he asked. 

Eldrian nodded. 

"Cellar duty. You're not scared of bugs, are you?" 

"No." He stood to follow the other children but the man stopped him with a hand. 

"Uh uh, through the kitchen." 

Only a handful of others had gone this way. As Eldrian traced their path, several of this weeks kitchen hands emerged and started the task of clearing away everyone's bowls. 

He wove around the tables, countertops and messes as well as the children presently engaged in clearing up the kitchen. Only one adult among them and she presently sat upon one of the counters, picking at dirt beneath her fingernails. 

"Down there, shrimp," mumbled a little Skytouched girl who looked no more than nine. She nodded towards a door on the north wall as she walked past, carrying an armful of dishes to a big wooden washtub. 

The finger-cleaning woman sat on the counter right next to the wide, cellar door. She swung a booted foot into Eldrian's path, as he tried to pass, and her hooded face, with aqua-streaked occumarks, turned to him. 

"Forgetting something?" She pointed behind him. 

On a table sat a small, limp satchel of a coarse fabric. Eldrian took it and peered inside. A piece of bread, an apple and a bit of dried meat. "Is this lunch?" he asked. 

The woman's hood shifted a little as her brow creased underneath. "What do you think it is? Get down there, shrimp." 

So even the adults were doing it. Perfect. 

The stairs descended slowly as he scampered down them and into the gloom. They were wide so that food could be brought up easily. No light occupied the stairway but Eldrian could see the telltale glow of one at the bottom. 

The stones of the floor felt a lot rougher and grittier down here. There were lanterns bobbing and moving in the distance, casting giant shadows across the rows of barrels, boxes, sacks and shelves. 

"Who goes there?" A man called from the cluster of lights. 

"Eldrian, sire," he replied. 

"Then you are in the right spot. Well don't go keeping us..." 

An Earthborn man and five sprouts were waiting for him. The former leaned his back against a pillar of stone while the rest were sitting, no doubt getting their pants particularly dirty. Regardless Eldrian joined them on the end and realized that he hadn't been wrong, the children really were all sprouts, each with their darkish skin, green/brown hair and lean bodies that belied the physical might of their race. 

"Ah, so same as yesterday, shelf cleaning and checking for rot. Make sure everything's dry afterwards or there'll be trouble. And keep an eye out for leaks along the walls. Sire Mastro said he heard dripping when the delivery arrived yesterday. Let that be the last time he hears it." The man finished by staring down every child one by one. Then he barked for them to get to work. 

The boys gathered up buckets and rags that they must have brought down from the kitchen. There were only five since Eldrian hadn't brought his own. He asked if he should fetch one now. 

"Nah, there's something else. Oh, hang on, err, Iyda! Leave that bucket and take this instead." 

The girl named Iyda turned around and exchanged her bucket and rag for an empty sack that had been on the shelf. 

"You two can go check on the traps and keep an eye out for any other pests. Eldrian, do you know how to make light in your hands?" the man asked. 

Eldrian nodded, since that spell was probably the easiest one in existence. 

"Good, you won't need that lantern then. For now you have my permission to use that spell and that spell only. But don't use it all the time. Just creep around the back shelves in the dark and lure out any roaches, ah?" 

Iyda led the way to the back row of shelves, her feet padding softly along the ground. 

"What did he mean I have permission to make light?" Eldrian asked. 

"What dajoo think he meant, stupid?" Iyda snapped. Her voice sounded somewhat familiar. 

"We're not allowed to use magic here?" 

"Ah, only sometimes... Ooo, look at this one." 

In the flickering gloom of distant lanterns, Eldrian watched as Iyda stooped down to pick something up. 

"Here, make your light," she commanded. 

Her silhouette now held something and he feared for what it might be. Still, Eldrian made the minuscule effort of focusing energy into the suncrest in each of his palms, causing both to light up. He squinted through the glare and flinched at the object of Iyda's wonder. A big rat with its neck crushed beneath the metal bar of a trap. Mercifully she dropped it into the sack and out of sight. 

Only then, with no other distractions, did Eldrian get a proper look at Iyda's face. "Hey, you shoved me yesterday," he said. 

"I shove lotsa shrimps." She set the bag down and used the light to readjust several strands of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail. Her features looked like the kind that only stopped their naturally grumpy appearance after immense effort on her part. 

"So..." but he paused, unable to think of a response beyond the accusation and its obvious implications. "Why?" he asked instead. 

Iyda went back to sweeping the floor with her eyes. "You were in my spot and you're a shrimp. I shoulda shoved you once for each but I was feeling nice." 

Eldrian let his hands stop glowing. Based on what that adult had said, he couldn't shake the feeling that being in the dark meant all manner of insects, spiders and other crawling nasties were creeping up on him. Home didn't have a cellar, only a pantry that sunk a bit into the ground. Even then, things often got in. Nothing like he imagined would happen in a place this big, though. 

"So, after this, do we have—" 

"Light," Iyda hissed. 

Eldrian lit up his palms again and spotted several cockroaches scurrying to cover in the walls. Iyda lunged forwards to stomp on them. 

"Gah! Missed one. Wheya saying?" 

His hands darkened. "Do we have school when we're done here?" 

"This is school, stupid." In the dark, Iyda snatched up another trap and bagged it. 

"But what about learning important things. Like stories about Keladesh and how everything began and how things work." 

"You mean book schooling? We do that on Sundays. It's boring though, you don't need none of that. Nobody gives anybody money for reading books, ah." 

Eldrian said nothing, too shocked to hear someone call books boring. Books were all he had had when his father was out teaching magic or healing the injured. Between learning from books and learning from father, he wanted nothing more than to grow up to be a great auromancer in Dawn's court. 

"You should give up on that soon," muttered Iyda when she heard it. She checked another trap but found it empty. "Dawn doesn't care about this place. If it makes you feel better, you can squash the next bugs we find." 

"Nah, that's okay," Eldrian mumbled. 

"But it's fun. You can pretend you're slaying monsters like zombies or skeletons and stomping them back into the dirt." Iyda stomped on the ground several times, huffing with every blow. "I'ma join the Goliath Guard when I'm done here. Then I can stomp on proper things, not just bugs." 

In the dark, Eldrian sized up the girl's silhouette. Granted she did look rather tall for her age, even counting her being an Earthborn. But he didn't think all that many girls made it into the Goliath Guard. Despite her having just stomped on his dreams like she did the cockroaches, Eldrian didn't tell her this. If for no other reason than it would undoubtedly lead to a repeat of the incident in the dining hall. 

"Light," demanded Iyda. 

He expected to hear a few thuds, maybe even a crunch, as he squinted against the brightness. Instead Iyda had her nose pressed close to the wall where the stones looked particularly slick with water. 

"I think this is the drip," she mumbled. Right on queue, a drop of water fell from above and exploded on the stone floor. 

"So what do we do?" Eldrian asked. 

Iyda gave a shrug. "Tell Sprig so the fixing kids can deal with it. It's prolla go'be really hard too. I think we're under the pond." 

Sprig had to be the name of the Earthborn supervising them, Eldrian presumed. It sounded like a suitable name, at any rate. 

"At least it's not dripping near the food." Iyda turned around to look at the shelves of barrels behind them. "They don't put food against the back wall so it's easier to dig the cellar deeper. That's a really hard job." 

"What's in those barrels?" Eldrian asked. 

"Booze and wine for the jailers. We call em jailers when they're not around. Otherwise it's 'teachers'." The girl flashed a mischievous smile at him then nodded to the barrels. "Dajoo want to try some? Now's the best time, they won't notice if we spill any cause of all the wet." 

Eldrian looked at her, then back to the barrels. Maybe the frustration and world-jerking change drove his decision to smother his suncrests and plunge them into concealing darkness. Iyda went first, cupping her hands under the tap while Eldrian turned it. A dark liquid spilled out and she quickly brought it too her lips with a slurp. 

Iyda gasped after swallowing. "Gyah, it's so bitter. And spicy." 

Eldrian agreed immediately when he felt the liquid scald his own throat. Definitely no wine that he'd ever heard described. Some other kind of alcohol that left his tongue on fire. "Do you know anyone named Anahid?" he asked while his accomplice sloshed their spillage around so that it wouldn't look suspicious. 

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Iyda asked. 

Eldrian thought it over but he didn't know. 

"Anahid can be a boy's or a girl's name." 

"I know, but do you know anyone with that name?" 

Iyda stopped kicking the floor and looked partways up at the ceiling. "I think I used to, maybe. Before I came here. Do they live in Rippling Moon?" 

The precise location of that town was another fact that eluded Eldrian. He only knew that it sat somewhere upon the northern coast, looking out over an ocean full of vicious Nerinye. A place far further than he, or even his father, had ever been. "I don't think so." 

"It's prolla not the same person then." Iyda picked up the sack and went back to stalking down the wall, only visible in the distant glow of the other children's lanterns. 

"Why don't we get lanterns? Why's this better?" Eldrian asked after another call for his light spell. 

"The shutters on them are really squeaky and don't close all the way. Means it gives the pests more— gah!" Iyda cried over a snap. She swung back with a trap in her hand. It had been empty. Not anymore. 

The girl turned around, her eyes squeezed shut and already tearing up a bit. Eldrian took her hand to help but she shoved him away. "No, shrimp." With a pain-filled groan, Iyda grabbed the metal bar and wrested it back far enough to free her fingers. Then she hurled the trap off into the distance where it clattered across the floor. 

Iyda clamped her teeth together and blew out through her nose as she assessed the damage. Already a bruise had formed and the skin on her fingers bore a long indentation, neatly spanning every digit but the thumb. She looked up and over Eldrian's shoulder where she had thrown the trap. "Go get that," she commanded. 

The hunting operation proceeded along the back wall until they reached its end. Then Iyda led the way through the rows of foodstuffs and other supplies. As long as it had taken before, locating and offing vermin around the food took far longer with so many places to hide. 

A while later came the time to break for lunch. The pair sat together on some sacks of flour, piled high on a series of boards to keep them off the ground. 

"Here, you can have this," said Iyda as she handed him a bit of dried meat from her own lunch. 

"Why'd they give you it?" Eldrian asked before biting into the offering. Too salty but he didn't mind. 

"Us kids have a rule that the kitchen crew should 'forget', as often as possible, if the lunch they're making is for an Earthborn. That way there's more food to go around, even if we don't get to eat it. Give me some of your bread, though." Iyda reached over and tore off a chunk without waiting for approval. 

A fair trade anyway. Earthborn invariably found meat nauseating. 

Eldrian's eyes wandered to the bag of trapped rats at their feet and a thought occurred. "What do they do with all those?" 

Iyda looked down. "Cut them up for the chickens. At least, that's what they say." 

Eldrian's chewing slowed down substantially before he withdrew the dried meat from his mouth and stared at it. Could he afford to be picky? Something told him that his future self might get mad at wastefulness. At least it tasted okay. 

Once they had finished eating, the hunt resumed. The sack of rats kept growing yet it never seemed to reach the point where Iyda struggled. But they weren't done yet. Sprig had another for them to fill and the other half of the cellar to fill it in. 




The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 02



"And there's another floor beneath this one," Iyda explained when Eldrian voiced disbelief that this kind of thing could take the entire week. "There's not much food down there, though. Mostly other things that aren't needed often. But we don't just clean and kill. Yesterday was the delivery and the day before that we have to make ready for it. And we only do cleaning down here every other week." 

The brightness of the kitchen nearly blinded Eldrian when he finally emerged. Being so close to the dining hall meant that they were among the first to arrive. That benefit turned out to be rather short-lived when Sprig spotted Eldrian already trying to sit down. 

"Come on you filthy shrimp, where's the manners? Off to the pond to wash first!" 

A slap on the back returned Eldrian to formation with the rest of the cellar crew and he scampered to catch up with Iyda. The procession drove through parts of the manor new to him, passing by children on their way to dinner. 

Eventually the cellar crew emerged in the gardens but hunger and the late-afternoon gloom, aided by the treetops, kept Eldrian from paying much attention to the scenery. All he noticed was the winding gravel path that crunched underfoot and the large pond which looked much less clean after everyone had washed their hands in it. 

Stew again for dinner. Yoled sat opposite him and chattered away about the important things to remember while living at Children of Light. Nothing nearly as interesting as yesterday. Iyda, of course, sat way over at the other end of the room, having parted ways without a word. 

Since they seemed to have no intention of ridiculing Eldrian anymore, lights out and bedtime came past far more quietly. As he stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come, he found himself facing his father in the bedroom during those final moments. 

Why would you punish me like this? he wanted to ask. 

=== 

She didn't need to leave her bed to tell that the hour had just passed midday. No reason to move, at any rate. Hunger clawed at her to go retrieve the meal set out in the other room but she ignored the urge. Ignored or didn't care. A gray morning. 

Gray mornings were when the earmuffs felt tighter, even though they weren't. When it felt as though someone had gotten a particularly large lump of wool, opened up her head and put it inside. She knew the sun stood at its pinnacle because the grayness of the morning had just begun to lift. She couldn't remember anything else about this morning, other than the fact that she had been awake for every second of it. 

Only when the gray cleared in full did she find the strength to stand. 

=== 

The cliffs outside the windows of the bridge connecting both halves of the manor fell so sharply that Eldrian couldn't tell just how far down they went. Vertigo told him far enough. Jagged stone and broken bits of rock face amid raging waters were the only cushions awaiting a fall. Luckily the windows were bolted closed and, according to Yoled, none but Skytouched were ever assigned jobs that put them over the fall. The net that enclosed the manor covered this spot too. But, on closer inspection, barbs were entangled in the ropes as added deterrent against Vouiareli or any others wishing to pass. 

Ultimately the view proved too much for Eldrian so he pulled away from the side before his breakfast made a reappearance. Harvest duty today, along with several kids in his dorm and many more from elsewhere. That entailed picking fruit from the large orchard that grew on the hillside beyond the manor. 

Two offshoots appeared along the passageway after the bridge. Eldrian looked through the western one that immediately went upstairs. 

"Is that the girl's tower?" he asked a kid walking beside him. 

"Ah," the boy replied before moving on. 

Eldrian lingered a second longer. Nothing but the orientation of the manor hinted that this stairway led to the Marisin's prison. He moved on without giving it another thought. 

The air smelled sweet when they emerged to it. Apple, apricot and teep trees crowded together with their branches sagging from fruit. No manicured garden here, it would have gotten in the way of the acres of orchard that descended the hillside. 

A short walk from the manor brought the harvesting crew to a wagon with plenty of baskets loaded upon and beside it. Their instructions were clear, take a basket and fill it up. Then take another basket and fill it. Keep going until the call for dinner. Eating fruit, unless allowed to over lunch, would result in being sent to punishment. 

Unlike the cellar crew, this job had at least a dozen jailers watching over them. The net hung overhead as it did above the manor but perhaps that didn't bring enough security to their minds. A Vocal man stood atop the wagon and his purpose couldn't have been clearer. Watch the children no matter where they might be. Shade, trees and foliage made the orchard want for visibility but that would come as no hindrance to someone who sees by voice. Even then, there were plenty of other jailers patrolling through the trees at all times. 

The air buzzed with bees, hornets and a hundred other flying insects as they gorged themselves on fallen fruit. The teeps were ripest at the moment, judging by their deep yellow flesh, so the entire picking crew found itself directed solely to that section of the orchard. The harvests from the days before brought them close to the edge of the property. No ramparts walled them here, just a sturdy fence with plenty of spikes and barbs along the top. 

There were no Skytouched among them, Eldrian noted. Too inclined to escape, perhaps? A pity since that meant everyone had to climb for the highest branches. 

Climb up, pick until your arms were full, climb down and fill the basket. Repeat. Eldrian found he could carry around seven teeps, depending on their size, in his arms and clothes. The basket filled swiftly and soon came the time to return it to the wagon. But when he grabbed hold of the handles and tried to lift, it didn't budge. Another try. Nothing. 

Eldrian took a step back and pointed his hands, palms open, at the basket. A new set of hands, invisible and born of magic, curled forwards from his suncrests and coiled around the handles. He lifted and the basket levitated easily from the ground. It had taken years of practice before he had been able to levitate objects as large as— 

"Hoy! No magic!" someone shouted. 

A teep splattered against Eldrian's forehead, fate cruelly deciding that it should strike right atop the bump from two nights prior. He wiped the yellow juices and flesh from his eyes and saw a Skytouched man storming towards him. 

"You don't know the rules?! Or do you think you're some exception, ah?!" the jailer shouted. 

"N— I, I couldn't lift it." 

The basket now lay on its side, contents spilled, having been dropped when the spell, and concentration, broke. 

"Then find a kid who has some muscle or take the chance to grow some of your own. Anymore magic and it'll be punishment for you, ah?" 

Eldrian breathed a sigh of relief when the man stomped away without another word. Several kids were watching but they quickly resumed their work once he noticed. Rather than dwell on it, Eldrian stooped to the ground, righted his basket and dropped the spilled teeps inside, one by one. Once he had it filled, he tried to lift again. He strained at the knees and shoulders without success. All the other kids were busy so, with a sigh, he began removing teeps, one by one, until the basket became light enough to move. In the end it meant taking twice as many trips. 

As the day wore on, their harvesting grew closer to the property's edge until, with the sky beginning to orange, the crew had reached the last few lines of trees. Eldrian finished on one then started the next that stood by the fence. He climbed to the top branches, for he found it somehow easier to start there. 

A minute passed before a thought struck Eldrian and he twisted around. Before him lay fields of wheat that rolled down the hillside. A farmhouse at the bottom with a river running beside it, perhaps the one beneath the manor. Beyond that, a road that curved into the distance where, vanishing over the horizon, Eldrian thought he could just make out the signs of a town. And the only thing keeping him from all this was a tangle of rope, wire and barbs. 

The bark of the tree dug into his skin as he considered the situation. 

Eldrian looked east where the hill curved out of sight. No jailers, just boys and girls busy picking. He looked west as a sprout dropped, by accident, a near-empty basket on a jailer who happened to be walking beneath the tree at the time. An uproar started and Eldrian looked south, towards the manor, where their Vocal sentinel turned his hooded head towards the altercation. 

He looked north again, through the net. I'm going home, father. Without awaiting a second thought, Eldrian called upon his magic to part the ropes and jumped through, vanishing into the golden ocean of wheat.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 03



"Fiye says the roof over the girl's tower needs fixing." 

"That's why she heads the roof crew." 

"No, sire, not maintenance. She says it looks like the frame's rotting out beneath the tiles. Most of the tar's gone too so it'll start leaking if nothing's done soon." 

"Mm, tar is a problem. I doubt there's much left in the cellar. She'll have to wait until next week when we can get some up in River Run. There's already a request in but they've been taking their time." 

"Then let's just hope the girl isn't bothered by a little rain." 

=== 

The wheat whipped and the hard-packed ground of a sun-baked field bruised Eldrian as he stumbled his landing. He stayed to the ground and twisted over his shoulder to peer back through the golden strands. Had anyone noticed? There weren't any raised voices, save the argument that had covered his escape, and he'd left his basket in the tree. Hopefully it would take a little while before anyone wondered where he'd gone. The only problem that remained was the Vocal. Even hiding out here, obstructed from ordinary sight, a voice could still filter him out with ease. 

No time to waste. Eldrian got to his feet, keeping his head deep below the surface of the wheat sea, and started down the hill. After fifty paces he looked back again and his stomach lurched. Behind lay a long, down-bent path that marked his every movement. Not obvious but anyone who made more than a passing glance would notice it and put two and two together. Not to mention that the wheat probably rippled differently to how the wind moved it as he snuck through. 

Unable to think of anything better, Eldrian flattened himself down and started to crawl instead. At least this way the wheat wouldn't get quite so crushed and wouldn't move as much towards the top. If anyone at the manor noticed him, one of the Skytouched jailers would be out here in a flash. But he didn't need to go much farther. The curve of the hill would obscure him from the orchard soon enough. Then it would be time to run. 

There were ants amid the wheat. Dozens of them searching for seeds and climbing stalks. Hunting other insects. Occasionally one would run across a part of Eldrian's skin and send a shiver up his arm or leg or over his nose. He tried not to move too suddenly in retaliation. Almost there. 

Suddenly he emerged into a narrow stretch where the wheat parted naturally and the ground was clearer. An animal's tracks, he realized. Some creature, a fox perhaps, had its burrow in the golden ocean and had worn a path with its travels. It moved eastwards along the slope and Eldrian followed it when he confirmed that he caused far less movement in the clearer space. 

At last he looked up to be greeted only by the rooftops of the manor. Eldrian tore himself from the ground and broke into a run. His feet thudded along the dirt, stinging again from the rough landing earlier. Stalks of wheat with their seeded ends whipped his cheeks and forced his eyes closed as he tore through. 

The land flattened out beyond the hill and the manor slowly crept back into sight. A dark, spired place from this side, shrouded behind walls of trees. But nobody would be able to see him from it anymore. He had nearly reached the river. Then came the road, past the farmhouse and onwards to that town way off in the distance. 

You can't keep me there, Eldrian told his father. 

=== 

By the time Eldrian arrived on the town's edge the sun sat low upon the horizon, threatening to sink beneath it at any second. When he'd realized that he would be far too exposed to the sky otherwise, he'd taken the river instead of the road. Now his clothes were muddied and wet from navigating the undergrowth of the banks. His arms ached from picking fruit and his legs burned from the trek but this place would come as salvation. 

Food, water and a place to sleep were the only things that Eldrian cared for at the moment. How to go about getting them formed a considerable problem when all his possessions, save the clothes off his back, remained at the manor. 

Horse and wagon travel, along with the occasional rain, meant that the main street running through the town was almost as muddy as the riverbank had been. Eldrian squelched and slogged his way onto one of the boardwalks along the sides where he thudded in search of something promising. 

River Run Garrison read the sign out front. A small place for a small town. Father had always said, and had often been right, that Dawn's Golden Guard were a good place to start when in need. Not that Eldrian had ever needed any advice to figure that kind of thing out. So he strode through the palisade and into the grounds where a Skytouched in leather armor swooped down. 

"Hoy citizen, what do you seek?" the soldier asked. 

"A place to stay," Eldrian managed after his initial flinching. 

"Then you should find an inn." 

"But I have no money. And... and I can't go anyplace else." 

The soldier's features softened. "Where is your home, master Solar. You're young to be traveling alone." 

"I have no home. And no parents. My father put me to stay at Children of Light but it's a cold place. A prison. They keep a Marisin locked up in the tower and put the children to work from dawn to dusk." 

The soldier turned his head to the south where, far in the distance, tiny pinpricks of lighted windows could be seen on the hilltop. He looked back after a few seconds. "Come inside, we'll find a bed to spare and something fill to your stomach. There's a well by the stables for you to wash your clothes." 

The food turned out to be stew, yet again. Granted, a far thicker and more satisfying stew. But as Eldrian picked at the contents of his bowl, clad in freshly cleaned clothes that were drying as he sat by the bunkhouse's fire, he wondered if these northerners had heard of any other meals. Something solid, maybe? 

Eldrian cast those complaining thoughts aside. At least he had a warm place to stay, free of aching labor and cruel jailers. The folk of the garrison had welcomed him and the commander had listened closely to stories of the true Children of Light, particularly the part about them keeping a Marisin in residence. He could rest here for the night, then start the journey back home. 

"They might try to come for me," Eldrian had explained to the commander. "I don't think they'll like the thought of a worker escaping. It might encourage others to do the same." 

And the commander had agreed. It certainly might. So the garrison had given him a bunk in the commander's own study with a guard to stand watch outside. 

The dull ache of Eldrian's wornout body threw him into sleep soon after he lay down 

The next morning brought sunshine screaming through the windows. Eldrian peeled himself from the bed, muscles still sore, and squinted outside. Wheat, swaying in the breeze as far as the eye could see. The town of River Run had been completely swallowed by it all. Even the river, for which the town was named, had vanished beneath the ocean of yellow. But as Eldrian watched, something started to move in the distance. A point, it looked like, that was rising slowly above the horizon. 

Intrigued, he stepped away from the window and wandered through the empty garrison until he found himself outside. By then the point had risen enough to take form. A tower, by the looks of it. The same one that housed the Marisin at Children of Light. Yet Eldrian didn't feel repelled by it. If anything, he wanted to cross the sea of wheat and go inside. 

The stalks and heads brushed delicately upon Eldrian's skin as he passed through the fields. Either by approach or magic, the tower continued to rise until it pierced the clouds overhead. He pushed inside the massive doors and embarked upon the stairway that spiraled endlessly upwards. It took almost a minute of climbing before he noticed the voice that must have been sitting on the cusp of hearing this whole time. Not a Vocal's seeing voice, this one had words rather than indecipherable song. 

Faster... Hurry... The voice called its encouragements with every step he took until, at last, Eldrian reached the top and faced a door of black metal, glowing all over with rune magic. 

Spells of locking, spells of warding, of teleportation, disintegration, dispelling, burning. Somehow he knew the meaning of every rune and, just as odd, he knew the words and movements to remove them. One by one the magic fell to his own until the door looked bare and boring. Then he simply touched the icy surface and it swung open. 

There were no windows so the room masked its contents to him. Its owner had no need of light to see. Eldrian could neither see nor sense her as he stepped inside. The girl, where did she hide? 

Come closer... come see... the voice whispered, no louder than before. Only then did Eldrian realize that it had always been in his thoughts rather than his ears. He lifted his hands and filled the room with light, only to stifle a scream when he saw her. 

The girl. The Marisin. Her arms were splayed wide, legs too, as she hung from the roof where it met the wall on the room's far side. Despite the radiance of Eldrian's palms, light died when it reached her. Shadows swirled around the girl's body as she lifted her head. Tangled strands of black hair fell away from her face and a set of bloodied occumarks came into view. She smiled. Eldrian ran. 

No, the girl cried in his mind as he stampeded across the floorboards before thundering back down the stone stairway. 

Come back, she shrieked. Come back. Come back. Back. Bring him back. We'll bring him back. 

"Let's get him tied up then we'll bring him back." 

Eldrian shuddered as he awoke, his vision filled by the bricks of the commander's study. 

"I understand the ropes, but is the gag really necessary?" someone asked. It sounded like the commander himself. 

"It isn't if you don't mind waking the good folk of River Run when this lad comes screaming past," another familiar voice. Paetin? 

The bleariness of sleep vanished in an instant. Eldrian rolled to his back and sat up. They were outside, crossing the garrison's grounds. 

"Ah, in that case." 

"Now if you don't mind giving me a hand. This one's yet to be broken in, you see." 

"Of course." 

His eyes tore apart the study in search of escape. The window? Did he have time? It didn't matter. Eldrian threw back the covers and practically dove across the room, his hands clawing at the latch. He had it undone straight away but his stomach turned when he lifted the window and it let out a mighty screech. 

The voices went silent and their footsteps quickened. Someone began throttling the lock on the door in an effort to have it open. 

With no time to spare, Eldrian threw himself out the window. His stomach caught painfully upon the sill and he tumbled into the mud outside, dark and murky under the midnight moon. 

He flew to his feet, slipped halfway up, stood again. They'd be checking outside any second. Where to hide? 

Across the yard stood the barracks. He'd seen them coming in and all the windows were darkened at the moment. Not inside but around the back. Already his feet were scrambling forward. 

"Where's he gone?" came a voice from back inside the study. 

"Out there!" 

Running proved tricky in the muck but fortune favored Eldrian's feet. He spun around the corner of the barracks and searched out his next destination. Nothing but a space between walls. The building and the palisade beside. But everything here stood on stilts to avoid the damp. He dropped to his stomach and rolled underneath before desperately trying to steady his breath. 

Squelches sounded all around. A Solar somewhere had their light casting around the grounds. It hunted through the mud but didn't reach beneath the buildings. 

"Anything?" 

"Not through the gate." 

"Under the buildings then. Check them, check everywhere." 

Eldrian clenched up. They were going to find him. He shuffled deeper into the mud. With so much covering him, maybe their eyes would slide over and find nothing out of place. 

The Solar's light swept across his eyes but they didn't make him out from the surrounding brown. He started to feel something else on his skin. The night. The mud. Shivering started and he couldn't make it stop. 

"Wake one of the Vocals for Dawn's sake. Get a voice out here." 

No. 

Only a matter of time now. Unless he made a run for it. But they would have someone watching the gate, no question. Every exit under guard. 

Better than laying in the muck. 

He shuffled out from the barracks and crept around to its corner. Along the wall, perhaps. The mud and the wood were close in color. 

"Gotcha!" someone hissed. 

The ground flew up and Eldrian found his face pushed into it. With mud blurring his vision, he couldn't see his captor. A guard? Not Paetin for he rounded the corner a second later. 

"A slippery lad, this one," said the Skytouched. "Hold him down." 

"No!" Eldrian snarled to the guards of Riverun. "They work us to the bone. Why are you helping them?!" 

Nobody said anything as they bound his wrists and ankles together behind his back. Nor was a word spoken when Paetin dropped Eldrian upon a horse, stomach down, and rode back to the manor. 

He could feel the massive bruise forming throughout the entire ride. So too did the ropes dig into Eldrian's skin. What a sight, he thought when he remembered the bump upon his forehead. 

The gates were open for them and Paetin rode all the way to the stables. He dismounted and left Eldrian to squirm upon the horse and ponder his misfortunes. 

Someone crunched along the gravel path, growing nearer with each scrape of stone. Eventually Miss Belamy's stark and harsh visage came into view. She tilted her head and eyed Eldrian as a hawk might eye a particularly juicy worm. 

"You need to be cleaned up. Then, off to punishment." 

=== 

She bolted upright, her heart pounding so loud inside her head that she almost mistook it for someone knocking at her door. But that wasn't what had awoken her. Something else. A voice? Something in whatever dream she had been having. Something that felt as though it didn't quite belong. 

She soon lost track of how long she had been sitting. When she finally slumped back into sleep, she found herself revisiting the same path as before, only to be reawoken the exact same way.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 04



"I trust he has been retrieved." 

"I wouldn't be here otherwise." 

"Then we can move on. Seems our little jewel in the tower is having difficulties with her earmuffs again." 

"Digging into her head?" 

"And drawing blood, yes. Fiye caught it when she and the others went to inspect the frame under the roof. The wounds will turn infected if something isn't done soon." 

"I'll arrange for a healer to come by as quickly as possible, Sire." 

"No, I want Miss Belamy to deal with it once she is done moving the boy." 

"Are you sure that's wise, Sire? You know how well she and the girl get along." 

"That is why they will not be left alone. Besides, she is more than capable of the healing necessary. See to it she doesn't do anything that will get us all killed." 

=== 

Miss Belamy made no effort to soften the ride as she levitated Eldrian behind her. Every doorway, every corner and every obstacle became a potential point of collision, seemingly at random. A bang on the ankle from a banister. Scraping his ear along the top of a door frame. She must have done these things on purpose but she also made no indication that she noticed or even cared. 

Trailing along behind her, Eldrian found the chance to get a proper look at the chief of child wranglers. She had her hair in a bun with two long ribbons, one blue and one purple, draping down to her waist. At present she wore brown leggings and a blue shirt with a white collar that folded wide over her shoulders. Even from behind, Eldrian knew the woman possessed a set of piercing eyes that seemed to plumb his soul for all the wrongdoings he'd ever committed. Even her nose looked sharp somehow. A knife of a woman through and through. 

Miss Belamy dragged him through parts of the manor as yet unseen. A library, a room that looked as if it had once been used for dances, another with a huge window overlooking the garden. But finally the trip came to an end in a stone room beneath the ground. The only way in seemed to be the stairway Eldrian had floated down. Standing around the walls were coffins of some manner, made from gray slabs of rock. A stale smell filled the air and singed his nostrils. Other than that, the room was bare. 

"The escapee?" asked a Vocal who emerged from the gloom. The occumarks on the hood of his gray robe were nothing more than specks of white. 

Miss Belamy ended her spell, dropping Eldrian to his feet which gave out. She said nothing. 

"Since he turned himself in, and since it is a first offence... a day should suffice." The Vocal had a voice as grim and bleak as his room. 

"Ensure that it's also the last offence, Vanet," said Miss Belamy before whirling on her heel and stomping back up the stairs. 

"As the miss bids it." Vanet waited until the child wrangler had thudded out of hearing before turning his head back on Eldrian. "Now, let's see about those ropes." 

Vanet drew a knife from his sleeve, stooped down and slashed the bindings around Eldrian's ankles, then his wrists. He ripped away the gag and pointed to one of the boxes that had a slab hanging ajar in such a way that it looked like a door to a very small room without a roof. "In there, shut the door and remove your clothes. All of them. Then your punishment commences." 

"But—" 

"Disobedience earns a longer stay. I've been kind so far, you'll agree." 

Eldrian's heart had begun to race at the unknown but he obeyed regardless. A lock clicked from outside once he had pulled the slab into place. The space became so small that taking off his shirt proved to be a much bigger problem than normal. 

"Throw them out the top," Vanet instructed. 

His arms scratched against the stone in order to slide past and hurl the clothes out. They scraped again on the way back down. Eldrian pushed against the back of the box but it didn't move. Nor did any of the walls. A space so tight he couldn't even hope to sit. 

Overhead, stone ground against stone. He looked up in time to see a lid sliding into place. It made a thunk as it sat snug with the rest of the box, totally sealed save a tiny hole in the right corner near the top of the door, too high to peek out of. 

"Punishment begins." 

=== 

He'd gotten turned around somehow, there could be no other explanation. How else had the door vanished? But in such a cramped space, the walls hugging tighter with every passing moment, Eldrian found it hard to believe that he could shift his body so substantially without noticing. 

How long had passed, anyway? Several hours, surely. Or perhaps closer to several minutes. His echoed breaths, warm as they bounced against the wall inches from his nose, served as the only marker for time. No, this couldn't go any longer. If the door had truly vanished, he'd make a new one. 

Eldrian forced his left shoulder against the wall as hard as he could. It stung his muscles all down his body. Arms, chest, stomach and legs, plaguing present injuries in places. But pain counted for nothing at the moment. He threw himself to the right and bounced back to the left. Right, left, right, left. The box started moving side to side, a little further with every shove. 

It began to feel as though Eldrian's shoulders might soon fall off. Another shove. Any second now and— Yes! A sickening lurch gripped his stomach and the box started to tilt on its own. It hit the ground with a mighty crash that shattered the doors hinges and sent him spiraling out across the floor. 

Eldrian shot to his feet to avoid Vanet but quickly realized that he was alone. The room was empty, save the boxes. Yet even those were out of place. His wasn't the only one that had tumbled. Another leaned yawning against the south wall, cobwebs tangling the inside. A third box had snapped in two when it struck one lying on the floor. Shards of stone littered the cobble and his feet left prints in the dust. 

The stairs groaned and creaked as Eldrian crept up them. He walked close to the wall as some of the boards looked ready to disintegrate from rot or age. Motes of dust danced in the sunlight that streamed down. Apart from the noises he made himself, the manor had an eldritch silence to it. 

The rooms were all in place, only the contents were wrong. The wallpaper in the parlor above punishment was peeling anyplace it hadn't been stripped to the boards already. Dust coated every surface and cobwebs every nook. The windows were smeared in oily grit but through them Eldrian could just make out the garden. What remained of it, at least. 

The ground stood bare of any plant life save the trees. Even those looked as though they had died decades ago. Twisted roots hooked into the ground and branches clawed the gray sky. The once-clear pond looked black and the marble statue of Dawn lay face down in the depths. 

Bookshelves and their contents littered the floor of the library. One had half its burden slanted with shelf after shelf coming undone on a single side. The chandelier rested on the floor in the center of the room, having crushed a tea table beneath it and festooned its glass in all directions. 

No place in the manor seemed to have avoided the instant eons. Even his dormitory, his bed and all his possessions, had either turned to dust or been covered by it. 

Eldrian crossed the bridge to the second half of the manor. A gray sky hung over the outside world and the trees were all still. In the bottom of the ravine, the river ran dry. 

Most of the doors were locked and refused to move no matter how hard he shoved against them. He couldn't remember ever seeing the secrets behind them in the past and it seemed that, even now, the manor meant to keep things that way. 

Ultimately Eldrian's wanderings took him to the base of the spiral stairway leading to the top of the girl's tower. He took a deep breath. It didn't matter what else there might be up there, only one thing held his fear. On the exhale, he stepped forwards. 

Once again the stone walls, echoing with footsteps, were the only sounds in the manor. Eldrian's shadows flickered under the light of lanterns and torches that were somehow still lit. Yet they seemed to grow dimmer the higher he climbed. 

The black door, glowing with runes and warding spells, greeted Eldrian at the top. He brushed each spell aside as though he had done so countless times before, some other hand guiding him, perhaps. The doors snarled open to reveal the shadowed room and he stepped inside. He felt welcome on the familiar ground. From the dark, a voice uncoiled to greet him. 

Come back... come back, it called. Come back to me... 

This time he wanted to. Eldrian raised his hands and cast his light. The tower filled with a magical glow that flooded towards the far wall and the roof. He saw her again, the Marisin. Long vines entangled her body and pinned her to the wall. Flowers bloomed as his light shone upon them. She lifted her head and moss-laden hair parted. Another smile beneath emerald green occumarks. 

I missed you, the girl whispered. Don't leave me again. 

Eldrian shuddered and recoiled as his head slapped one side of the stone box. He could hear movement upstairs. Dozens of footfalls from children going to todays work. He pushed against the door but found it remained locked. Punishment continued. 

=== 

In the end, either because they had forgotten about him or because nobody could be bothered letting him out in the middle of the night, Eldrian's punishment lasted half a day more. He emerged stiff and sore from standing so long. Bruised and scratched from scraping against the walls when his legs couldn't take anymore. It hadn't been until he had recognised the need to relieve himself that the reason for his nakedness became clear. That also explained the awful smell in punishment. 

Once Eldrian had his clothes back on he trudged up the stairs, only to be greeted by Paetin the second he reached the top. 

"Go wash your feet in the pond, then come with me," the Skytouched said. Any friendliness that had once been present during their journey here had since vanished. 

Once cleaned, Eldrian found himself shepherded by Paetin towards the upper half of the manor. Back to working in the orchard, he presumed. But rather than continuing in that direction, they veered towards the second floor, then the third and fourth. Finally they stood before a carved door of a rich dark wood. Paetin's fist rapped gently upon the carvings. 

"Enter," came a voice on the other side. 

"It will be punishment if you disrespect Sire Mastro," Paetin hissed. Then he walked back down the hall, leaving Eldrian alone. 

He looked at the handle to Sire Mastro's door. Like everything else in this part of the manor, it drooled with expense. Shining brass in the form of a coiled serpent. Eldrian gripped it and turned, then stepped inside. 

A miniature ship hung from the roof, tilted on its side such that it seemed to be capsizing. On the left, resting on a stand, was a large book, closed at the moment. Eldrian couldn't see the cover but everything about it suggested its importance. Hardly any clutter occupied Sire Mastro's desk. A pot of ink and some quills. A few pieces of parchment, not all with writing. Another book. Nothing else. Sire Mastro himself had his blond hair combed over and a neat little mustache that barely stretched out from under his nose. His clothes were plainer than Eldrian had been expecting on the top man. A simple brown jacket and tie with a white shirt underneath. 

"Ah, master Eldrian. I had hoped you'd stop by." Sire Mastro waved to the chair on the other side of his desk. Once it was filled, the Solar continued. "I'm sure you can guess the nature for our meeting?" A cheerful smile. It only made things far worse. 

Eldrian nodded. 

"Good. Then, if I may, why did you wish to abandon us?" 

"I don't like it here. Your people are cruel." 

This time it was Sire Mastro's turn to nod and he did so thoughtfully. Then he motioned for the conversation to continue. "Please, keep going. Let me hear everything before I make my rebuttal." 

Eldrian hesitated a moment before finding his words. "I haven't been here long but you work us from morning to night. You told my father, everyone, that this is a school but it's plainly not. You keep a Marisin locked in a tower as if she's a pet, even knowing the danger. And you make children tend to her." 

"Those are problems, yes, but are they really why you wanted to leave?" 

"Yes." 

Sire Mastro raised an eyebrow. 

Eldrian's resolve snapped first. "I want to go home." 

"How?" 

"I'll walk." 

"It's a long way. And when you get there, what then? What and where will you eat? Sleep? Not to mention the loneliness." 

Eldrian said nothing so the man continued. 

"I know you miss your home, but that's in the past. You have the memories to keep you warm but dwelling on them forever won't bring any of it back. The time has come to think of the future." 

Still nothing. 

Sire Mastro began drumming his fingers on the desk in little, rhythmic waves. "Well, as for your complaints, they are understandable considering where you came from. You see, most of the children here weren't as fortunate as you to have been raised in a loving home. I'm sure by now you've heard them use the slang 'home shrimp', either on you or another. By that they mean that you came from somewhere nice. Somewhere off the streets. But many here were not so fortunate and many more, after losing their families, would have found themselves there had I not stepped in. Yourself included, perhaps. There all of you would be, fighting or stealing for your next meal. Dreading the icy cold of winter when it comes. At least here you know that you will always be fed, provided you don't misbehave." 

The way Sire Mastro spoke almost sounded familiar. Like father, Eldrian realized. That patient, logical manner that requested a silent, attentive audience without ever needing to demand it. He didn't know if he should spit on the similarity or embrace it, given the circumstances. In his silence, Sire Mastro continued. 

"And as for schooling? These children are learning. When a child turns sixteen, they leave the manor with myriad skills that will help them find work and purpose in the world. And, just to be sure, we teach them to read and write as well. Book learning, as they call it. Tragically, many don't place the same value on books that I, and clearly yourself, do." 

This time Eldrian's lack of response came from lack of words rather than desire. It all sounded so wrong in his head but, when Sire Mastro said it, Children of Light suddenly became a beacon of Dawn's compassion. Then he realized the one oversight. "What about the girl?" 

"Ah yes. Yet she is not the threat that all the children here seem to think she is. Why would I keep her in my home if she truly was?" Sire Mastro shrugged. "But don't take my word for it, you can see for yourself soon enough. 

"What do you mean?" 

"You've been placed on tower duty today. Head down to the kitchen and you can meet who you'll be assisting." 

It took every vestige of Eldrian's willpower to pry himself from the chair. His stomach rumbled as he reached the kitchen but no breakfast had been served just yet. The hour had barely reached seven. Why then were they already bringing food for the girl? 

The kitchen crew was hard at work as he walked in. All but a single Earthborn boy who sat on a bench at the far end. Eldrian recognised the face from his dorm but no name came to mind. "Are you on tower duty?" he asked. 

The boy nodded before thrusting out a hand to be shaken. "Dodeb," he said. "We have to wait a bit until the kitchen crew have everything ready." 

Eldrian sat with the boy while they watched all the other children milling back and forth in an effort to get everything ready. Today's menu looked to be more porridge, judging by the large pots that were bubbling away. It must be easy to make for so many people, hence its popularity. Stew too. 

"Everyone's talking about you escaping," said Dodeb. "They think it's funny. And stupid." 

Eldrian refused to rise to the challenge. "It was just bad luck they caught me." 

"Bad luck? You home shrimps always try to run off. And you always come back when you realize how much nicer it is here." 

"I didn't come back, it was bad luck. I'll try again later." 

Dodeb shrugged. 

The action, more than the words before it, bothered Eldrian. But he said nothing more. 

Another child approached them then with a tray that held a big bowl of porridge and a jug of water. Dodeb took the offering and slid from the countertop before padding off, Eldrian in tow. 

They were silent initially, both content to listen to the sounds of the house waking up. Laughter poured from one door, a girls dorm by the sounds of it. As they passed by, Eldrian heard the familiar voice of Iyda. 

"I'm trying to sleep!" she shouted. The laughter died immediately. 

As they crossed the bridge, and the girl's tower drew ever nearer, Eldrian finally found his voice. "What's the girl like?" he asked. 

"I doh' know, I never stay long. She's a Marisin, ah. She turned that man inside out and threw him into the sun." 

"Will she be there?" 

"Probably not. We just leave her food in the parlor and she stays in her room. Most of the time she's still asleep. That's why I get up early or she might be waiting for me." 

Up the spiral stairs they went, passing the other floors on which it landed, until the branches stopped for a while. Then, around the final corner, came the doors to the Marisin's room. They were made from long wooden boards that looked incredibly thick and sturdy. A steel frame held the planks together and a lock occupied the center. No magic seemed to be at work. 

"Well, here we go. Let's hope she's asleep. I think porridge is her least favourite breakfast." 

Dodeb handed the tray to Eldrian before fishing through his pocket and retrieving a key. He pushed the piece of bronze into its lock and turned until a loud click rang out. The doors opened silently, a fact for which both boys were most grateful, to reveal a darkened room with nobody else in sight. At least, not yet.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 05



"Our friends tell me the Outflier is due on the Tuesday, Sire." 

"Tuesday hmm? That's inconvenient. Do they know a time?" 

"The afternoon, I should think." 

"In that case, tire out the children in the orchards then settle them in classes. Any who can't behave can go to their dorms or to punishment. I've a feeling we may need to start showing more than our prized handful of 'orphans' to these inspectors." 

"How many rooms?" 

"However many it takes for him to get bored. Oh, but not the one with our recent escapee. He's a smart lad, but less so than he likes to think. We don't want to give him any foolish ideas, understood?" 

"Always, Sire." 

=== 

The swathing of darkness added a deeply sinister feel to the room as Eldrian stood upon the threshold. Yet, save the light, it looked no more sinister or unusual than any other room in the manor. One of the windows buckled outwards so that one could sit in it and stare at the scenery. Could have stared, rather, were it not boarded up along with all the others. A table and chairs stood in one section of the circular room with an oil lamp to accompany them. Several bookshelves made their homes between the windows but none held books, only trinkets. 

"Why's it so dark?" Eldrian wondered aloud. 

"She likes it that way," Dodeb whispered. He tiptoed a few steps inside before motioning Eldrian to follow. 

The floor immediately within the doorway gave a loud creak as Eldrian stepped upon it. He flinched and Dodeb whirled round with a finger raised to his lips. 

"She doesn't like being woken up," he hissed in the darkness. 

Same as Iyda. Granted, the latter attacked with words while the former... who knew. 

Dodeb set the tray down upon one of the tables that stood by a window. He removed the porridge and water, fiddled with the setup for several nerve-wracking seconds, then returned with the tray under his arm. "All done," he said as he brushed by. 

"That was easy," Eldrian remarked, the two of them walking back to leave. 

"It's harder when she's awake. It's even worse if she's already in here." 

"Doesn't she try to escape?" 

Dodeb shook his head. "She can't when she has the earmuffs on. She can't use her magic to kill anyone. Well, she could but it'd hurt her too. Probably. I think." 

That explanation offered Eldrian little to no comfort. 

"If you ever have this job, and she's in the room, just pretend she isn't there. If you're really really quiet, she might not even notice you. Sometimes she..." 

Whatever Dodeb went on saying, as they began heaving the doors closed, shot past Eldrian's ears. All his focus jumped to the other end of the shadowed room where stood the door to the Marisin's quarters. He could hear her singing. That soft-echoing, vaguely ethereal voice which tried to wrap around him. Even through the dark he could see movement as a crack opened. Then they closed the door and the singing stopped. 

"Is that all?" Eldrian asked in an effort to distract himself from the girl 

"Until lunchtime. Now comes the part that makes this job worth it. We've got free time until noon. Sometimes I go to the library or the garden. I guess you've got free time too." 

The library enticed him the most so he headed that way and Dodeb decided to come along. The shelves only spanned a single floor but the place still managed to hold the title of largest library that Eldrian had ever seen. They were the only two present so, apart from sounds of life elsewhere in the manor, their steps and exploration of the shelves were thunderous in volume. 

"This one's my favourite," said Dodeb as he sat down at one of the tables. 

Eldrian had yet to pick something out; he wandered back anyway to look at the sprout's selection. The Complete Keladesh Bestiary read the cover in long, swirling letters. 

"It has lots of drawings in it." Dodeb began flipping through the pages and looking at the pictures. He didn't appear to actually be reading any of it. 

Back at the shelves, Eldrian picked out a book of stories named Aryonid's Assorted Tales. He'd already read some of Aryonid's other writings and most of them were jokes that never really happened. But that only made them better. 

"What's that one?" Dodeb asked. He blinked when he saw. "But there's hardly any pictures, just words." 

"Ah, I know." Eldrian flipped open the book to the first story and his eyes started moving across the page. Almost immediately he became aware that the sprout remained watching. 

"Can you really read all that?" he blurted with incredulity. 

Eldrian nodded without pausing the story. 

"What's it say?" 

This second interruption managed to break his focus and Eldrian took a tired breath. "Do you want me to read it to you?" 

Dodeb pondered for a moment before closing his book and pushing it to one side. 

"Okay..." And Eldrian began the story. 

A hundred hundred years ago, when the great empire of Keladesh was but a dot upon the world's grassy face, there lived two great lords of two great cities, Lord Nava of Nin and Lord Dava of Din. Nin stood upon the land known today as The Hushing Plains and his benevolence was known throughout his dominion. But Dava lorded over the mountains, that would one day be named Howling Pass, and his greed is still spat upon. 

One day, a day not unlike this one, should the day you read this be just as sweltering, a peasant woman swooped down from the sky to land in Lord Nava's court. She nearly collapsed then and there from hunger but, once her strength had returned, she begged Lord Nava for aid. 

"Please, oh benevolent lord of the bountiful field, Lord Dava of Din has struck poor folk their final deathblow. He has raised tariffs upon all food in his land such that anyfolk to eat even an apple owes his lordship a tree full." 

Now, the benevolent Lord of Nin had always been a patient man when it came to his rival of Din. But it is said that on that day even the cattle in their fields felt the sting of Nava's outrage. 

"That greed-stricken fool would sell his own mother for a vase and a horse," Lord Nin hissed. 

"He already has, your lordship, just last week. Only it was a clay pot and a mule" 

Well if the last straw hadn't yet been broken upon the skysnake's back, it was at that moment. 

Lord Nava of Nin immediately set about concocting a plan to have his greedy rival done away with. And luck just so happened to be with him for Nava's daughter, Jana, and Dava's son, Kana, were madly in love with one another. 

The plan flowed easily together, beginning with the arrangement of Jana and Kana's marriage. Of course, for this, the greedy Lord Dava demanded considerable dowry. Twenty acres of land in the north, forty acres in the south, sixty orchards to be planted on the land and a river to be dug between them. He also demanded that the wedding be hosted by Lord Nava of Nin. Now Nava agreed to every bit of these requests, somewhat to Dava's surprise... 

"...And," Nava added in his letter. "I shall add my prized stallion so that you may ride between your newly-earned lands." 

How could Dava be expected to turn down an offer like that? 

So the plan entered its later stages and, under the cover of darkness, Lord Nava of Nin went to the greatest inventor in his dominion to commission the final piece. 

The weeks rolled by until the day of the wedding arrived and the entire city of Nin came out in colors to pay their respects to the young couple. Jana and Kana, unaware of the plans, were nearly brought to tears over the beauty of their ceremony. But that beauty tarnished when Lord Dava demanded he receive his payment before any vows be exchanged. 

Of course, the lands were not yet ready and could hardly be moved to Nin so only the stallion made an appearance. With all the court of both lords waiting, Dava went about inspecting his prize. He checked the strength of its legs, the silk of its mane and the grit of its body. 

"And it's teeth?" Nava suggested. "Did you check those?" 

Dava hadn't so he moved to the front of the horse and pulled open the beast's mouth to investigate its teeth. Immediately he sprung the trap that Lord Nava had commissioned and a bag of venomous hornets, secured between the horse's jaws, tore open and swarmed all over Lord Dava's greedy head. He fell to the ground beneath the barrage of stings and curled up, dying soon after. 

Despite the grim beginning, the rest of Jana and Kana's wedding went off without issue. In fact, so little did anyone care for Lord Dava that his twisted corpse remained where it fell until the following morning when Nin's hounds dragged it away for breakfast. Nobody knows what happened to the murderous hornets as they were never caught. 

So we come to the obvious lesson, never look a gift horse in the mouth. 

"Wow..." said Dodeb once the story had finished. "It really says all that." 

Eldrian nodded. "The story's called Nava the Nice and Dava the Dead. Do you not know how to read?" 

"I can too! I can read my name and the jobs on the board." 

"And that's it?" 

Dodeb nodded. "I dihn know there was so much other things to read." 

Eldrian looked around the library and wondered to himself how that thinking could have come about. "This one's just a story, though," he said as his gaze returned to the Sprout. Hardly anything in the story had a grain of truth about it, not even the time it had taken place. The Empire wasn't anywhere close to a hundred hundred years old. But that didn't matter, the book, and all the stories in it, were meant to be jokes. 

At Dodeb's request, Eldrian moved on to the next story in the book, then the one after and a fourth reading soon followed. 

"Dajoo want to come with me for the lunch one?" Dodeb asked when the hour rolled around. 

Eldrian pondered the possibility for a moment but decided against it. The girl would be fully awake and active, a perfect time for her to strike. 

So you'll leave Dodeb to fend for himself? a thought argued back. He shook it away, the sprout had been fine managing this job before, why should that change now? 

"Ah, okay. Can we keep reading after?" Dodeb asked as the two of them headed towards the eating hall. 

Eldrian nodded and they parted ways when Dodeb went towards the kitchen to collect the next tray of food. There weren't nearly so many kids present for lunchtime. The cellar crew would be eating in the dark while those in the orchards feasted on a portion of their harvest. 

Towards the far side of the room, Eldrian spied Yoled, Bossman and several other boys from his dorm, sitting together. He walked over and they spotted him immediately. 

"Hoy, it's the runny home shrimp!" shouted Yoled. A weak breeze picked up as his atoh blades carried him on wings of air before he landed on the table. 

"They caught you fast, home shrimp," said Bossman. 

"I went to the guards in River Run but they turned me in instead." 

"You went to the guards?!" Bossman burst out. He started cackling and the other kids joined in. 

Eldrian rolled his eyes. This again? They were clearly misinterpreting the events. So he humored them. "What's so funny?" 

"You escaped... and you went to the guards... straight away," Yoled heaved. 

"That's right—" 

"You sure are stupid, home shrimp," said Bossman. "What'djoo think would happen, they'd take you in and send you home?" 

Eldrian gritted his teeth. "The people here are bad. They keep a Marisin in the tower and they make all of us work all day." 

"But who's the guards going to believe, ah? Sire Mastro or some home shrimp?" 

Eldrian almost started his rebuttal when he stuttered. When Bossman said it like that, it almost did sound stupid. 

"Besides," Yoled managed as his composure slowly returned. "It's not so bad here. There's lots to eat and it's warm. And when your clothes get too worn out, they give you new ones." He wrapped his arms around his chest as though giving the shirt he wore a hug. "I remember when I used to fly past the clothes makers to find any scraps they forgot about." 

"But they have to give us clothes, ah. Otherwise there'd be a hundred naked kids cleaning up after them." 

Once again the table burst into laughter as every boy imagined what that would be like. Eldrian sat down with them, torn between the relief that their attention no longer fell on him alone and the frustration that they could move on so easily. Not only that, but frustration that they were almost sounding... right. Eldrian tried to focus on the lunch instead. 

Bread and fruit. The former looked a deep brown from the coarse wheat used to make it while the latter, a teep, had its juices oozing into the bread. 

Maybe the jailers did see me, Eldrian thought to himself as he relived the moments of escape. Looking back, his trail should have been incredibly obvious. And the Vocal watching, too. Maybe they knew they didn't need to bother chasing. 

"Did Miss Belamy give you punishment?" asked a kid. 

"Of course she did! How long?" Yoled blurted a little too loud. 

"They said a day but it went a day and a half. I fell asleep." 

"Fell asleep?!" the entire table exploded. 

"Nobody falls asleep. Vanet and the wrangler chief'd get super mad it they found out," said Bossman. 

Another shrug as Eldrian swallowed a mouthful of fruit-soggied bread. "I doh' know how, it just happened." 

The rest of lunch passed by with general chatter about whatever piqued the boys' fancy. Afterwards they went their separate ways with Eldrian returning to the library and a Dodeb eager for more stories. But before he left the dining hall, Yoled pulled him aside. 

"Doh' worry," said the Skytouched with his funny, northern accent. "Lotsa home shrimps try and run away and the ones who don't get caught come back anyway cause it's nicer here." 

Eldrian couldn't tell if these words were meant to comfort him. They didn't. 

=== 

She ate in silence. She did everything in silence. The earmuffs made sure of that. 

Doing what? the girl wondered, a spoon inches from her face. Eating... of course. A moment of forgetfulness. 

The room looked a little brighter today. She couldn't tell why. The boarded-up windows hadn't changed at all and, if the outside were any indication, the sky had more than its share of clouds. 

She felt alert, energized. A day for drawing, maybe. Or carving. Watching the world go by, mending her clothes, making new things with the scraps of fabric and other tidbits in her room. The girl couldn't decide where to start. Nor could she remember the last time that she had been quite so driven to action. Not that long ago, surely. Last month, perhaps? The day she had whittled a miniature horse. Yes, that had to be it. Perhaps it had earned a friend. 

And for myself? she wondered. Again the spoon stopped in midair. 

No, that was silly. She didn't need a friend for herself. 

=== 

The week went on, Eldrian finding himself rotated to a new job every day. Cleaning, gardening, pest extermination, kitchen duty. Eventually Sunday came around and a half day of classes began. Book learning, as the majority of the other children called it. He'd been looking forward to this from the moment he knew of its existence. Finally some actual schooling. 

They were rounded into groups, each with a 'teacher' whose sole job seemed to involve berating any kid who hadn't figured out how to write their own name. 

"You can read your names, ah? We put them up on the boards in your dorms. Go take a look!" 

Only a few were still struggling with name-writing, mostly the youngest children. Hardly anyone could read. The words they knew best, and the ones the teachers were most interested in teaching, were any that appeared on their job boards. 

After a couple of hours struggling with reading and writing, they had a short lesson on Keladesh history, consisting of a story being read aloud, before book learning came to an end. 

That left Sunday afternoon where nobody, save Dodeb, had anything they needed to do. Most went up to the orchards and played games under the close supervision of several Skytouched and Vocal jailers. Miss Belamy constantly patrolled the manor in search of children to send to punishment. 

Eldrian, Yoled and Iyda, meanwhile, found a place to sit in the lower gardens. A willow stood in the back, near where the walls kept them from falling into the ravine. The weeping tree sagged over a second pond that looked naturally-formed and far murkier. Perhaps it had always been there. 

Tangles of ivy grew upon the ground and across the walls, climbing partway up the nets that stopped everyone from escaping, and, possibly, Vouiareli getting in. 

"They read us the story about when Dawn first met with the Nerinye," said Iyda, followed by a groan. "I've heard it before. They don't remember who's heard what, if they even care." 

"Is that a good one?" asked Yoled who lay upon a branch above them like a lazy cat. 

"No. There's hardly any fighting. How can a story with Nerinye in it have hardly any fighting?" 

Insects droned in the garden, adding to the sense of a warm, drowsy day. 

"If you had escaped..." Yoled began. 

When he didn't finish, Eldrian looked up from his bed of ivy. "What?" 

"I'm thinking." 

Perhaps on a cooler day, he or Iyda might have questioned the logic of starting a sentence before thinking of its end. Instead they let it slip. 

"If you had escaped, where would'joo have gone. 

The cogs in Eldrian's head clicked together one by one. "Home," he said. Beyond that, he didn't know. 

"Ah, but dajoo know the way? And'jood have to walk... I'd go to the ocean and swim in it." 

Iyda picked a stick out of the ivy and threw it at the Skytouched but it bounced off his branch. "That's dumb, the Nerinye will eat you," she said. 

"Na, I can just fly away." 

"Not if they bite your atohs off." 

Yoled didn't have a response to that so Iyda continued. "They'll come up from underwater and grab your legs. Then, soon as you try to fly off, they'll chomp down on your atoh blades, one by one." 

"She's right. She's seen it," Eldrian lied. 

"Ah, it happens all the time to stupid little flits who think they'll be okay." 

For a while they only had the insects to keep them satisfied for sound. Finally Yoled said, "Maybe I'll go south instead." 

This time it was Eldrian's turn to prey upon him. "Then the giant hawk Galobi will get you. She'll pluck you right out of the sky." 

"What about east?" the poor boy asked. 

"More Nerinye." 

"And west?" 

"Some folk say they've seen a wolf the size of a mountain out there," Eldrian said with an evil smirk. That had to be a lie, though. What would it even eat? 

"See?" said Iyda. "Nowhere's safe but right here. You'll just have to stay at the orphanage all your life." 

Later that day, when everyone had been forcibly retired to their dorms, the conversation turned its way towards the coming week. 

"Hoy home shrimp, you love book learning, ah" Bossman suddenly called from across the room, looking up from his game of pebbles. "Is it a new month this week?" 

Eldrian closed his eyes and counted forwards from the last date he knew. There hadn't been many reminders here at the orphanage. Finally he said, "Ah, on Wednesday." 

"New jobs!" Yoled whooped. "No more scrubbing floors." 

"Until they give you it again," another kid called out. 

"Do they have Dawn's day here?" Eldrian asked. From the way everyone fell quiet again, it felt as though he had made a mistake in inquiring about the holiday celebrated everyplace else on the first of the month. 




The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 05



"Ha! What dajoo think, home shrimp?" someone shouted. 

"They make us work extra hard, is all. Since it's our first day on new jobs," explained another. 

"And Belamy the wrangler's always stomping around checking on us." 

Bossman stood up in the center of the room and puffed out his chest. "Punishment, punishment for all of you. Another peep and it's punishment til the week's end," he shrieked. 

Suddenly the door burst open and everyone fell to the floor as though the dorm had come under attack. Eldrian seized up when he saw who entered. 

Her porcelain face tense, yet calm, Miss Belamy stepped down the aisle between the beds, her hands clasped behind her back. She met the eyes of every boy before stopping in front of a now-cowering Bossman. 

"Master Norrison, was that you I heard just now?" she asked calmly. 

"N—no miss," Bossman stammered, his eyes wide. 

"Are you quite sure?" 

"Yes miss, v—very sure." 

Miss Belamy bent down a short way and leaned in until her narrow, pointed nose stood a finger-length away from Bossman's squashed one. After a few, nerve-wracking seconds, she pulled away. 

"I like you, Norrison. You're just the right amount of clever." Miss Belamy spun around, the ribbons in her hair whipping out, and strode back towards the hall outside. "And Norrison, I'll put your tongue in a vice if you lie to me again." 

Everyone flinched when the door slammed closed. Nobody said anything, perhaps for lack of words, until one of the younger-looking kids pointed and started laughing. "Hoy look, Bossman's wet his pants!" 

Once again the room flew into an uproar with boys shouting and cackling. 

"Shut up!" Bossman shouted. He took a swing at a nearby flit but the boy jetted backwards, only to bump his head on the wall behind anyway. "Shut up! Jood all've done worse!" 

"It'sa... it'sa good thing we're not above the food hall," Yoled managed as he rolled through the air the same way an sprout might roll on the floor. "If we were, it'd go in everyone's stew!"  

The laughter resurged and Eldrian found himself unable to help but join in. Even as Bossman wrapped one arm around a boy's mouth and tried to force him down, the yelling and giggling continued. 

"Wait!" shouted Ajan, his voice carrying the otherworldly boom and echo that only a Vocal could produce. Everyone looked at him. "The girl's watching, I hear her." 

All eyes turned towards the girl's tower and silence crept over for a while. 

"Hoy, she stopped." 

The tension flooded from the room in an instant and everyone let out a collective sigh. 

"Who dajoo think is go'be the next caretaker?" someone asked. 

Nobody had an answer to that. The selection was random, unless somebody stepped forwards. 

"It should be Ajan so he can see her again, ah?" Bossman pointed singled out the pip with his finger. 

Ajan blushed as the joviality resumed over some joke from before Eldrian's time. 

"Nah, stop!" Ajan shouted. "I doh' like her!" 

"Ajan and the Marisin! Ajan and the Marisin!" the rest of the dorm chanted. A few boys pretended to kiss an invisible partner. 

Eldrian could only smile as he watched from his bed. 

=== 

From the moment Eldrian and the rest of the dorm woke up the following morning, they knew something was wrong. Even from the sanctuary of the room, the house seemed to buzz with movement. Footsteps thundered overhead and sometimes down the hall outside. But the time for jobs hadn't started yet. Otherwise the whole dorm would have been in punishment. 

"Is it an inspection today?" asked Ajan. 

Everyone had their eyes on the roof. 

"Ah, sounds like it," said Bossman. 

Eldrian looked at his fellow Solar. "Inspection?" 

"Ah, the Golden Guard are coming." 

Breakfast felt rushed, their porridge dryer than normal as though it had been cooked too fast over a flame too hot. Down the other end of the hall, Iyda kept looking at the doorways in. Eldrian wanted to walk over and find out what she was expecting but the girl never seemed to respond well to interruptions, least of all when eating. He had his answer soon enough. 

Rather than heading out to the jailers for the jobs, they were visited towards the end of breakfast. Several of Sire Mastro's men and women, a few of whom Eldrian recognized, strode in. 

"Everyone stand and pay attention," Miss Belamy commanded, her voice undulled by the early hour. "When your name is called, you will proceed as directed. Disobedience earns punishment." 

A man standing next to her stepped forwards. In his hands he held a large book that he began to flick through. "Kaveyeda Doss!" he shouted without looking up. 

A Skytouched girl stood and looked around before being waved through one of the doorways. 

"Ralinis Jair, Vib Padret, Estoli Starskowin." The names rattled out with no clear order or system and, one by one, the eating hall emptied. 

Eldrian's name came penultimately and the jailers directed him to the side of the hall that led downstairs. Only a handful of other kids had been pointed that way. After the final name, he and the rest in his group were returned to their dorm. 

Inside, Eldrian took a quick check of who remained. Himself, Bossman, and a handful of other boys whose names he hadn't yet learned. The vast majority were off elsewhere. 

"What's going on?" he asked the woman who had led them down. 

"Stay in your dorm. No noise or it'll be punishment. Don't leave until we say." Then she closed the door and that was that. 

"This is different," said Bossman after a few minutes. "We're supposed to have breakfast then we all come back. Where'd they take the others?" 

"To see the guards?" asked Eldrian. 

Bossman looked at him, considered this a moment then shook his head. "It's normally like this, ah? The guard comes and Sire Mastro has us all in our rooms. Then he has just one class to show and all the kids in it are the ones he knows won't step out of line. And after that's done, Sire Mastro goes up to his study with the guard and they drink wine all day." 

"So why is it different?" 

Nobody had an answer. Instead they fell quiet, lying on their beds and staring at the ceiling. A few broke out a game of pebbles but the sense in the air wasn't anything like the end of a normal day. Everyone, Eldrian included, seemed to be on edge. 

"There's got to be some reason," he said aloud. If the guards were on Sire Mastro's side such that they only ever needed to be satisfied by one display class, why all the relocation of children? He sat up as the answer dawned. "Bossman, do the guards know about the girl?" 

Bossman, his back turned, shrugged. "I doh' think so." 

"We should tell them." 

At that suggestion, Bossman, and the rest of the dorm, twisted around to stare blankly at Eldrian. He faltered momentarily under their gazes but soon found his voice again. "Think about it. Maybe they're doing all this because the guards aren't on Sire Mastro's side anymore. Or not as much, at least. If they found out about the girl now, they might abandon him completely. Then we can all get out of here." 

"Why?" a kid asked. 

"Because the guards wouldn't let anyone keep a Marisin locked up with a bunch of kids. And there's loads of us!" Eldrian struggled to keep his voice from trembling. He suddenly felt all jittery as he stood up and looked around the dorm at all the different faces. This opportunity, they couldn't waste it. "If we all do this together, or even half of us, we could figure out a way to tell the guards and get them on our side. As soon as they find the Marisin, that's it. Nothing Sire Mastro says, could turn them back after that." 

The only thing that stood in their way was a door that locked from the other side. Eldrian leveled his finger at it. "If we all work together we can break down that door. Then we split up and find the guard. There's too many of us for the jailers to stop. Come on, we can do this. Who's with me?" 

A crushing silence met his ears. Nobody jumped to their feet. The only ones that moved did so to return to their game of pebbles. 

"Don't be afraid," said Eldrian, though much of this flare had faded. 

A hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to see Bossman. "Nobody wants to run away," said the spark. 

Eldrian's mouth trembled a little as he struggled for words. For a few moments he had seen himself from the outside. One of the great heroes in his stories as he gave a rousing speech to the troops. "But it's bad here." 

"Ah, and it's worse out there," Bossman argued. 

"Yeah, there's food here," said an Earthborn who presently lay upside down and partways off his bed. 

"And it's summer now, ah. That means it'll be winter soon. Home shrimp, you're crazier than you are stupid if you want to run away for winter." 

Eldrian opened his mouth to say something more but no words came to mind. None of it made sense. Father was wrong to put him here. Wrong about everything. He needed to go home, not stay in this dreadful place. 

It didn't take long for the rest of the dorm to refocus their attention on their games and quiet conversations, the shrimp forgotten. As Eldrian stared at the ceiling, a new idea came to mind. He slipped off his bed and padded up the room, past the children who paid him no more than a glance. At the far end of the dorm, near the door, he lay down on someone else's bed and waited. 

Maybe the drudgery was to blame, or the fact that everyone had woken up a tad earlier than normal, but Eldrian slowly realized that his eyelids felt incredibly heavy. So little sound surrounded him and this bed felt far more comfortable than his own. He couldn't tell whether or not that was imagined. Curious as to whose bed this was, Eldrian opened his eyes to ask Bossman. 

He wasn't there. In fact, Eldrian couldn't tell if anyone remained in the dorm. The oil lanterns must have all burned out as a pitch blackness had taken over. 

His heart began to thump a little faster and his throat became dry. He wanted to call out to his dorm mates but he feared that the darkness, thicker than he had ever imagined, might swallow his every word. The only sounds were those of his own breaths. 

With a soft squeak of the springs, Eldrian rolled off the bed that wasn't his and stumbled immediately over something on the floor. Once his feet were found, Eldrian brought light to his palms to banish the insidious darkness. 

Despite focusing as hard as he could, the spell barely reached the stone floor. The shadowy gloom clearly had an unnatural element for to resist light so easily. Regardless, Eldrian stooped down with his illumination and found that he had tripped on a shirt, nothing more. He looked around but the rest of the dorm stretched infinitely into a blackened void, the magic in his suncrests barely making a dent. 

They weren't supposed to leave the dorm. Miss Belamy would swoop down with punishment if she caught anyone doing so. But this choking dark meant exceptional circumstances and Eldrian no longer cared what anyone would do. He had a deep, nerve-wracking sense that there might be someone, something, else in the manor. Something that didn't mind the shadows quite so much as he. 

No light in the passageway outside, nor in the kitchen and eating hall. The dark had never posed much of a problem to Eldrian before. He remembered other children back home being afraid to go outside after sundown. But, having learned the spell to make light at an early age, darkness, and fears of it, stood no chance. That is, until now. 

It almost seemed as if the dark sought to swallow his hands, and the brightness they produced. Every step made the shadows in front part reluctantly while the ones behind rushed forwards. Eldrian's hands cast monstrous specters over the furniture as he emerged upstairs in the entry hall. At first he thought the curtains must be drawn, for not even a sliver of light cut through the dark. But as Eldrian reached the windows, and finally peered outside, he saw the truth. 

A deep night, an unnatural night, consumed the land. Eldrian cancelled his spell and waited for his eyes to adjust but still no stars came into view and the moon, if it existed at all, had fled someplace. He brought the spell back and stepped away from the outside world. 

The fireplaces were empty and no oil lanterns deigned to ignite. Nothing, it seemed, save his magic, could fight the dark. And with darkness came silence so deep he could nearly hear his heart when standing still. 

Progress through the manor came slowly when ones vision was limited to a pace ahead. Eldrian found his steps retraced several times before he reached the bridge over the ravine. There the dark swallowed even the ground and his stomach turned when he looked outside. But as he went to look away, a glimmer of salvation caught in the corner of his eyes. High in the air, glowing faintly through the suffocating shadows, was a spot of light from a window. Someplace on one of the upper floors? But which? 

Eldrian pulled away and continued his gradual trudge across the bridge. He concentrated on remembering the manor's layout and where the lit window might be in regards to his current location. It didn't help that he had been unable to see any structure surrounding it. A square of light floating in the dark. 

He tried every door and every passage on the upper floors but none was illuminated. Ultimately his feet found a spiral stairway and, despite the darkness, he knew where it would lead. The only place left to search. But he had thought the girl preferred the dark... 

Every step upwards proved treacherous as the shadows swam upon them. Looking down revealed a stairway into the pits of the Screaming Void but Eldrian pressed on. He reached the top at last and cast his hands and magic across the glowing runes before pushing the blackened doors open. 

The light that immediately shone through nearly blinded Eldrian. He shielded and closed his eyes as he waited for them to adjust. Once they had, he blinked a few times and stepped inside before seeing who awaited him. 

Dawn, Eternal Empress of Keladesh, stood there, shining with all the radiance of the sun. No, wait... not Dawn. The girl, yet no less bright than Eldrian had imagined the sun's daughter might be. The darkness outside, powerful as it had proven, couldn't hope to cross the threshold of the room. It almost felt as if the light sought to banish every inch of shadow from his soul as much as this blackened world. 

The girl held out a hand and beckoned him closer. Then she pointed to the floor. 

Down here, she said without her lips moving. Down here. Nobody is down here. Down in the cellar. 

"Down here's just the cellar, none of the dorms or classrooms or anybody." 

Eldrian jolted at the muffled voice outside. A man's, it sounded like Paetin. He opened his eyes and rolled over to face the hallway door. 

"Hoy look, he woke up," said Bossman behind him. "How dijoo fall asleep now?" 

"Shh," Eldrian hissed, then added "I wasn't asleep." 

"That doesn't mean it's above inspection. Empress Dawn demands everything be suitable. The guards you've dealt with in the past have left much to be desired." These words came from a new voice, one that Eldrian had never heard before. Whoever owned it, he neared their dorm and would soon pass by. 

Seeing the chance, Eldrian sprang to his feet and thudded on the floor. His legs felt heavy as though he had just woken up. How long had he been lying in bed? No matter. 

Some of the boys spat words of surprise to one another when they saw him reaching for the handle. Eldrian gripped it, turned and pulled before flinging himself into the hallway and the path of the guard's entourage. 

"It's all a trick, we're like prisoners here!" he shouted as he flew to the floor. The landing only served to sting the bruises around Eldrian's chest and stomach. He flinched, regained his strength, then looked up. His heart sank. 

The trick, it seemed went far deeper than expected. Paetin, Miss Belamy, and a pair of other jailers, one of whom must have carried half the conversation, stood together, staring daggers at him. No guard in sight. 

Miss Belamy pushed forwards and stooped down to smile at her prize. "How did I know which fish we would catch?" 

Eldrian gulped. From the door watched several boys who all looked as though they might be thanking Dawn that this situation wasn't theirs. The child wrangler's gaze shot to them. 

"Back inside!" she commanded and the dorm slammed shut a second later. "As for you... Mind him in the cellar until Sire Mastro is ready to share his thoughts." 

Paetin nodded but said nothing. 

The other two jailers stepped around the ones in charge and lifted Eldrian by the shoulders. Together they dragged him up the hall and through the empty kitchen. Down into the darkness they went. Somehow it felt familiar.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 06



"Paetin will be along with our refreshments shortly. In the meantime, I invite you to make yourself comfortable." 

"I can see why the others speak so highly of this place. You live like a king, Sire Mastro." 

"Pah, no need for the formalities." 

"Well, before we relax entirely, I hear rumors that you have something here. Quite a prize." 

"Oh? And what prize is it that I am supposed to have?" 

"They're only rumors. A great work of art, an incredible weapon, a font of knowledge? A prize to one man is a bit of cork to another." 

"Wise indeed. Ah, but here's Paetin so let's see if we can't drown some of that wisdom, hmm?" 

=== 

Dinnertime neared when Eldrian finally found himself freed of the cellar. He could mark the approach by the activity heard overhead and the occasional patter of feet as someone came down to retrieve an ingredient. The boiling of their evening stew was already well underway by the time he entered the kitchen. At least it tasted a bit different every day. 

With nothing better to do, Eldrian helped to fill bowls and bring them out to the tables. Kitchen duty hadn't come up in his roster yet so the tedious work still felt new and interesting. 

A short time later and the thunder of footsteps, that heralded a hundred children approaching, started up. Nobody moved with the dreary fatigue that they tended to normally. The day had been relaxing, a rare vacation brought about by the visiting of the guard. The only kids who had to do anything were the ones pretending to learn in the classrooms. 

"They made Iyda stand up and count to ten," reported Yoled. "She only got there cause they made us count to ten a lot of times before the guard arrived." 

"Can you count to ten?" Eldrian asked, suddenly interested. 

Yoled nodded then sounded off the numbers one by one. He had to search a little for nine but he managed in the end. 

"What about past that?" 

The Skytouched boy frowned. "Those numbers are different. It's eleven and twelve, I think. But then you have the teems. Like three-teem and four-teem." 

"Teens, not teems." 

Yoled perked up a little. "Dajoo know them?" 

"Ah, they're easy once you get the pattern. I'll show you later." 

After eating, Eldrian approached Iyda and asked if she wanted to be shown counting as well. 

The Earthborn girl brushed off the suggestion. "Counting's stupid." 

"But you could count how many bugs you stomp," said Eldrian with a smile. 

Iyda considered the concept for a moment before shrugging. "I'll stick to stomping, let Dawn count them." 

Back at the dorm, Eldrian found only a handful of boys with any interest in how to count properly. A bit disheartening but he taught them all the same. He tried to, at least. They learned slowly but the more he taught, the more he realized that their lack of knowledge may not have stemmed purely from a lack of teaching. 

Eggs for breakfast the next morning. Grilled bread and apple jam to go with it. Did the job change have anything to do with the menu adjustment? 

"We get a special breakfast on new jobs day," Yoled explained. "It's for something called morale." 

The jailers stopped by once the eating began to wind down. Everyone was called, one by one, to different sections of the room and the passageways beyond. And, once again, Eldrian was sent elsewhere. 

"Did you think we had forgotten?" Miss Belamy asked, looming over him. 

"No." 

"Good. Maybe you are learning something." 

She led him to the upper section of the manor, across the ravine, and to the door outside Sire Mastro's study. 

"Enter," he replied to the rasping of her knuckles. 

Eldrian stepped inside and sat. 

The Sire had some document in his hands that his eyes perused, even as he began to speak. His tone suggested that his thoughts lay elsewhere. "Master Eldrian... I'm told you were a tad disobedient yesterday around noon. Would you mind explaining yourself to me?" Only then did Sire Mastro look up, that friendly smile returning with its too-neat moustache over the top. In some twisted way, he almost looked like Father before the illness had worked its poison. On second thought, maybe not twisted. Maybe suitable. 

"Did you tell him about the girl?" Eldrian asked. 

"He never inquired and the subject never came up. Why does the girl interest you so?" Sire Mastro tilted his head like a bird eyeing something enticing. 

"She's dangerous. She's a Marisin and you're keeping her here with us." 

"We've been through this already and I've assured you she is no danger. But for a moment, let's suppose she is. Let's suppose she desires to kill again even though she can't. Do you think she should be held in an actual prison, rather than here?" 

Eldrian didn't have to think long about that one. But when he opened his mouth to answer, Sire Mastro got in first. 

"Have you ever seen a real prison? One where they send adult murderers and Marisins? She is a killer, yes; a child first, roughly the same age as you. But a real prison wouldn't hurt her. Not her. She's here because, were she ever sent to a real prison, she would spell the doom of everyone inside it, captives and guards alike. Not to mention anyone living nearby." 

This time Eldrian didn't have a response. 

"I haven't told many students this, young master but I feel you're intelligent enough to understand it properly. The fact of the matter is that the girl doesn't want to escape. We treat her as we do to make sure of this. You see, if she did desire freedom, no force in this world could stop her. A prison would only hold her until someone did something extremely stupid. I've seen some of the damage she can cause, Eldrian, but I pray never to see its limits. Do you understand?" 

He nodded slowly, though still uncertain as to whether he agreed with all this, or even whether or not he heard the truth. "Thankyou, Sire," he said at last, for lack of something else. 

"You're most welcome. But it still concerns me that you were so intent on attempting to close down Children of Light." 

Another lecture. Eldrian didn't want to listen but he stayed sitting anyway. 

Sire Mastro kept talking in the absence of a reply. "I know you don't want to stay here. I respect that you likely never will. It's a step down from what you're used to and it saddens me that there's little to be done about that. But for most of your fellows, it's a vast step up. They're safer here, Eldrian. They're warm, sheltered and fed, besides the fact that they're kept out of trouble, all of which would not be the case were they left for the streets and their own devices. So let them be, Eldrian. Please." 

He nodded. He had known something like this was coming. More words that, in Eldrian's head, sounded so wrong until they were said aloud. Then the tables turned and they assumed a twisted rightness that only he seemed able to see through. 

"Now, Miss Belamy wants you to be sent to punishment but she's quite the firehead and after our little talk, I think you've learned your lesson, correct?" 

"Yes Sire," Eldrian half-mumbled without meeting the man's eyes. 

"Good. I understand your short course on repairs is today and the crew is tackling the roof so best be on your way. You'll find them under the ivy trellises, I imagine." 

After another 'yes sire, thankyou sire', Eldrian thudded downstairs and back across the closed bridge. The gardens were a buzz of activity with children weeding, trimming, harvesting and watering the many exotic flora that Sire Mastro kept. Everything looked unnaturally neat, from the gravel pathways to the box-shaped hedges and shrubs that lined them. 

Eldrian eventually found his way to a wall that had become covered in thick vines, but nobody else was around. 

"Hoy?" he ventured. 

"Up here." 

Peeking over the eaves of the roof was the face of Yoled. He waved, wobbled and, for a moment, Eldrian's heart jumped into his mouth at the thought of the boy falling. Then he remembered that Yoled had atoh blades growing from his back so a fall wouldn't faze him. As if to demonstrate this fact, Yoled hovered partways off the roof on rippling wings of wind. 

"Climb the vines," the flit instructed. 

Eldrian stared high at the roof for a few seconds longer. Sire Mastro had seemed to be letting him off without punishment but the yawning height said otherwise. Didn't they have plenty of Skytouched to fix a roof four stories up? 

"Doh' worry, I'll catch you if you fall." Yoled swooped from the eaves to hover a reach above the ground, the atohs poking from his shirt casting a faint breeze upon the neatly-trimmed lawn. 

"Are you strong enough?" Eldrian asked. 

Yoled gave a shrug. The subtle movement caused him to shift a little in flight. 

With a deep breath, Eldrian grabbed a handful of vines and started pulling himself up. They were stronger than he'd expected. None showed any desire to give or snap beneath his weight. The leaves on the surface belied far thicker coils underneath, wrapping themselves over the trellises and digging into the house. Luckily his shoes were soft and flexible from wear or it might have proven difficult to find purchase. 

When at last Eldrian reached the top and clambered over the gutters, he saw that only a few of the children present were Skytouched. Why so many not? Unless Sire Mastro meant for everyone to possess the same set of skills when they finally graduated from the orphanage. No specialists here. 

"We already got told what to do," Yoled explained as he offered a hand. "We have to go up to the girl's tower and pry up the roof so they can get underneath." 

Eldrian froze at those words. "Pry up the girl's roof?" 

"Ah, but quietly so we don't disturb her. Then we can start pulling out the bad bits of wood." 

He was about to look over the side of the house, wondering if a fall might get him out of this in a non-fatal manner. Then Yoled's words struck home. Dodeb had said something similar too. "Why quietly? She has those earmuff." 

"Oh yeah, I guess we can be loud then." 

At the very least, the knowledge that the girl wouldn't be able to hear them prying up her roof settled Eldrian's nerves. He still didn't relish the thought of stomping around above her prison. But there were plenty of handholds along the roof, as he discovered during the jaunt over. Some were purely aesthetic tidbits while others looked built for the task. Two step ladders carried them onto the top of the bridge, then up the other side. Then came the greatest obstacle, a narrow path of steps to their destination. 

Once away from the edge, Eldrian took a moment to stare over their surroundings. This happened to be the highest point of the manor by a fair way. A fall from up here would certainly kill but the view at least tried to make up for that. River Run stood clearly in the distance, marked out by several smoking chimneys and the faint movement of a spinning watermill. 

"Here," said Yoled. 

Eldrian glanced at the boy and took the shard of metal being offered him. It had a curved shape, blunt at one end but flat and pointed at the other. A device to wedge under nails and lever them up. 

"So where do we start?" he asked the flit. 

Yoled pointed towards the other side of the roof's peak. "Fiye showed me already. It's not very big but there's loads of nails. Also, we have to save the ones that aren't too bent or rusty cause they're still good, ah." 

Stooping low to the roof, Eldrian shuffled around the curve, one hand on the slats at all times. Yoled, meanwhile, hovered and this produced a faint breeze that proved enough to be quite sickening. 

The damage in question looked relatively insignificant. There was a small section where the slats were twisted and rotten, sprinkled with bits of fungi that peeked through the gaps where the sun couldn't quite reach. 

"How did your parents die?" Yoled asked suddenly as he sat on one side of the rot and wedged his shard of metal underneath. 

"Why would you ask that?" Eldrian replied. He would have thought the topic to be somewhat private. Nobody had cared until now. 

"Everyone shares eventually. We wait till a shrimp's settled first. Now's a good time, ah?" 

Settled didn't seem the right word for the present. Eldrian shrugged. "My father died before I came here. Some kind of disease." 

"At least you're not sad anymore, ah?" 

He ripped up a slat. "Mother was different. She used to mix things together. Alchemy and such, but different. One day she mixed something wrong and our house exploded while father and I were outside in the garden." 

"Wow... How old were you?" The shard of metal lay limp in Yoled's fingers as he listened to the story. 

"Two. I don't remember it or her. I think... there's this big crash but maybe I made that up." Another slat came free. With it came some of the frame beneath. Eldrian paused a moment to peer through but part of the rotting ceiling inside still blocked their view of the girl's room. "Do you think we—" 

There came no warning for what happened next, not even a groan, only a deafening crunch and crash, followed by the sickening jolt of lost balance as the roof gave way beneath him. His muscles knotted reflexively and he lashed out for something to stop the fall. That something happened to be Yoled's left leg. 

The dark swam up to swallow them. There came a scream from both, Yoled's cutting out abruptly before they hit the ground. Eldrian landed on one foot, then the next, bent, and fell. Yoled thumped on top of him. The pain swiftly followed amid fragments of timber and roofing slats. He could feel sharp stings along his body that may have been nails or nothing at all. 

Yoled didn't move so Eldrian pushed him off. He tried to sit up but his right ankle shrieked in agony. A glance down confirmed the odd angle that he feared. Broken. Badly. Instead Eldrian twisted over to peer at the Skytouched lad. His eyes were closed and a dark, bloodied mark occupied the side of his head, matting with hair. A bump from a beam on the way down? Otherwise the boy looked fine. He'd had a cushioned fall, after all. 

A thousand tiny needles dug themselves around the flesh of Eldrian's ankle. He hauled himself upright and his fingers curled and twisted around the wound. In the column of light that shone down from outside, he could see blood seeping through his pants. He didn't dare a closer look. 

Basic healing magic formed a staple of the spectrum of light and Eldrian had studied that section in the past. The grinding, piercing pain cried that he put it to the test. The drowning voice of logic told him that he knew enough for a bad cut at best, not a shattered bone. Such could only lead to far worse damage. Instead he huffed and clenched his teeth, eyes scrunching closed and senses seizing up to escape the relentless spasms. 

Nearly a minute passed before Eldrian's lungs started to burn too and he realized he had been holding his breath. A gasp for air opened his eyes. At that point their surroundings fully registered. 

Darkness here, the kind he'd seen once before with Dodeb. Boarded-up windows, a few lonely bookshelves and a table with two chairs. The parlor of the girl's tower and them sitting near its center in a beacon of light. Eldrian jerked his head this way and that, searching out every inch of the room. No girl. Her earmuffs would keep out the racket that their entrance had made. With any luck, she would stick to her bedroom. 

Eldrian looked up at the hole in the ceiling. Someone must have seen them fall. Except... he and Yoled had been on their own and the curve of the tower's roof might have put them out of sight. Not to mention they had been at the highest point of the manor. And anyone down below, either in the gardens or the orchard, would be contending against sunlight, foliage, wind or all combined in order to notice anything. 

The tower's door stood nearly ten paces away, were he capable of standing. They couldn't stay here. Eldrian twisted and rolled onto his side, keeping his crushed ankle elevated. A sickening wobble from his foot told him that it had begun to hang loose and limp, swinging with every movement. He started pulling himself along the floor. The grain of the wood caught against his clothes and a rug ended up accompanying him. Every huffing movement sent needling jolts through his battered body. Old wounds, and new, did their best to stop him. 

"Gah!" Eldrian cried as his bad leg accidentally tapped against the floor. For several moments he could do nothing but coil up in agony and clench his teeth until the throbbing died a little. A glance back revealed no activity from the girl's room and nothing from Yoled either. 

Reaching the door was hard enough, opening it proved a different challenge entirely. Eldrian propped himself up on his elbow and clawed for the handle. He came up about a forearm short. Higher. He folded back into a half kneel, just a little— yes! The cool kiss of brass had never felt so sweet. But no movement came when he tried to turn and the high faded immediately. Of course it was locked. If not for the pain, maybe he could have thought clearly enough to predict that. 

Or levitation, Eldrian realized with a groan that, for a change, didn't come from physical torment. He could have just as easily used his magic to try the door from the other side of the room. Well, there would be no further oversights. He sank back down and held out one hand. Never before had he tried the trick he had in mind but, with Dawn's mercy, it would work. 

The magical energy that extended from Eldrian's glowing palm crept up to envelop the door handle. A slight wave of levitational force worked its way into the lock and began fiddling with the tumblers. Things looked promising until another force pushed him back out. 

For a moment Eldrian frowned in confusion. Then he realized that the lock must have some kind of tampering enchantment in place. Given what it aimed to protect, perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to go fiddling. Other such spells sometimes punished would-be intruders. 

So we're stuck. Eldrian slumped to the floor again and rolled around to check on Yoled. His stomach lurched and his heart leapt into his throat at the sight that greeted him. 

Yoled hadn't moved. The girl had. Like a ghost, she'd swung open the door to her room and stepped outside. Her bare feet padded across the floor, carrying her closer and closer to the crumpled body of the flit. 

No voice greeted Eldrian's ears so she hadn't spotted him yet. But she did slow and stop several paces from Yoled. Behind the beacon of light, none of her features were visible. Only a rough outline of her shape. Still, there came a faint movement as her head tilted down to the boy, up to the roof, back to the boy. 

Some twisted side of Eldrian hoped that Yoled would be enough to entertain her. Maybe fate heard him for the girl decided instead to step over the flit's body and continue her advance. 

No, Eldrian begged. He looked at the floor in front of him, unable to face anything else. 

Closer. 

Please no. 

Closer. 

Tears began to creep into his eyes. They'd broken her roof, brought light into her room. Did the man six years ago cross a similar line to earn his punishment? 

Closer. 

Singing started to fill his ears. A gentle, sweet and soothing melody that might have calmed him had he not known its origin. 

Two feet appeared in Eldrian's view and he couldn't help but look up to meet the face of their owner. Her other features went unnoticed behind her occumarks. Two long streaks of coarse skin, black as the night sky. The tips reached beyond her hairline while the ends stretched down to be in line with the corners of her lips. Long, thick gashes of darkness. Never before had he seen a Vocal with black occumarks. 




The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 06



The girl said nothing as she tilted her head on its side to regard Eldrian. Her song continued, her lips making the slightest movements. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited. 

"Who are you?" the girl asked.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 07



Chapter Seven

"Did the jobs transition fare well today, Paetin?"

"You would know already had it not."

"Good. I can say as much for our inspector."

"The wine cellar suffered somewhat."

"Worth it, in the end. By the way, an excellent plan with that little trap of yours yesterday."

"Thankyou, Sire."

"The boy's a clever one but— What was that?"

"Something falling? I'll find out."

"Seems we spoke too soon on the jobs transition. Maybe we were asking for this."

===

Eldrian's eyes fluttered open and found their way to the girl's occumarks again. Two long, straight curtains of equally-black hair framed her face, pale from a life in the dark.

"Who are you?" she asked again, louder this time. In contrast to her singing, the girl's voice sounded odd. Off, somehow. Almost as though she was talking from the other side of a thick, warped sheet of glass, though without the sound being muffled.

"I— I'm—"

"Don't stutter," she said. This time her words seemed to roll backwards as well as forwards, though no less discernibly.

"Eldrian," he blurted out. Then he wondered how she could hear him, for she seemed able to. His eyes wandered to her earmuffs. Big, brutal, metal things that sat upon her head in an ugly mess. Each end, a large lump of steel, covered an ear with a glowing, blue rune letter atop. She wore no hood, unlike so many others of her race, so the fleshy, scarific nature of her occumarks should have been plain as day if their color weren't so camoflaged. But Eldrian didn't focus on those. Instead his eyes wandered to the hints of dried blood that peeked out around her ears.

"Eldrian," she tasted the word and her voice sounded like the wind. "Are you new here?" she asked.

Every time the girl spoke, her voice seemed different. The tone, the harmony, everything. Even with his limited understanding of sound magic, Eldrian knew how much of a problem this would pose to her casting spells when there was such reliance on things as seemingly insignificant as volume. Were the earmuffs solely to blame for this? Or were those runes doing something too?

"Are you awake?" The girl asked. She nudged her foot against his. The bad one.

"Mmm!" Eldrian tensed up at the pain.

The girl looked down and her voice sank a little before returning with her eyeless gaze. "What happened to you— Did you break my roof?"

"No!" Eldrian blurted out.

"The light is coming in. Why did you do that?" she asked her voice raising slightly.

"I didn't. I mean, it was an accident."

"You wanted to come look at me, didn't you?" The girl's features creased. "I remember, you were here before with the food boy. Now you're back for another look. Everyone wants another look but they don't break my roof!"

Eldrian shuddered, his heart pounding so hard it almost distracted him from his leg. This was it. The end. A fast trip to paradise.

The girl kept going. "Why dijoo want to look at me? Look at me now, ah! Look at—"

Her voice screeched to a halt but Eldrian barely had the sense to wonder why when he heard the footsteps thundering up the stairs outside. They were winding up and up, by now only one floor below.

"...just pray to Dawn they didn't land on their heads. We're lucky something like this happened now and not yesterday," came the voice of Paetin.

The girl took several steps backwards as a lock clicked open. Eldrian felt the door thud against his back and push him along the floor.

"Back to your room, child," said Paetin as he entered.

The girl huffed then turned around and padded deeper into the darkness until she faded from sight and closed the door behind her. Eldrian looked up at his saviors. Besides Sire Mastro's second there was Sprig and a jailer whose name he didn't know. The latter strode over to reach Yoled's side.

"Flit's got a nasty bump but he's breathing okay."

"What about you, young Eldrian?" Paetin asked.

"My ankle," was all he could manage.

The Skytouched man stooped down to inspect the damage. "Tsk, that's a bad bit of work. Get him up, Sprig. Belamy will need to take a look at it."

For a moment the pain faded under Eldrian's fear of what Miss Belamy would consider 'taking a look'.

The pain came back in a flood as Sprig hefted Eldrian into the air. He hissed through tears at the momentary pressure it put on his ankle.

"Carefully," said Paetin. Then he turned to the other jailer present. "Have Fiye get a sheet or some such to cover the hole. And find out what she was thinking in putting these two up there on their own."

The journey downstairs went slowly as Sprig made the merciful decision to creep with as little bounce in his pace as possible. Still, the constant, pounding agony was more than enough to keep Eldrian occupied. So much did it hurt that he almost didn't notice the girl's voice pass over him for a few seconds.Then they were on the landing for the floors beneath.

===

"Hyng!" Eldrian groaned into the bit of wood in his mouth.

The hands causing him such torment retreated and Miss Belamy stared down at him. "More fuss than a birthing woman." The second's pause must have been sufficient as her fingers went back to their job of probing his break.

Eldrian clamped his eyes closed and tried to send his mind elsewhere. The only locations he could find had rivers of fire and fields of needles. Places where it hailed rocks and blew searing ash. At this stage, even the bed in this infirmary caused him agony.

"Ugh," Miss Belamy sighed, her hands mercifully stopping again. "It's no good. The bone's completely shattered and this bend isn't helping. I'd only set it wrong."

"Any ideas?" Paetin asked.

"Well, we could always cut it at the knee."

Eldrian's eyes shot open. "Mmm! Mmm!" He grunted with wild shakes of his head.

"In that case, Sprig?"

"Miss?"

The jailer and the child wrangler stepped off to one side, their backs to Eldrian. A whispered conversation passed between them. Sprig shook his head, Belamy pressured him. He agreed in the end. When he returned, he looked grim.

"Sorry kid. I'll do this quick."

Before Eldrian had a chance to realize the plan, Sprig's hands were on his broken and bent ankle. The Earthborn took a firm, painful grip, then jerked the leg straight.

"Mrrnh!" Eldrian shrieked into his gag. Tears flowed with renewed vigor and he nearly blacked out. The fact he didn't only added to the cruelty.

Paetin had his eyes elsewhere and Sprig quickly turned away once his work had finished. Miss Belamy, meanwhile, failed to give the slightest flinch.

"Good, that will at least make this possible. I'll yell if anything else is needed."

The two jailer men seemed grateful to be allowed to leave. Once they had gone, Miss Belamy returned her seething focus to Eldrian's leg. Her fingers coiled around the break as her palms began to glow and healing magic spilled forth. On a smaller wound, this might have felt soothing. Despite not knowing it particularly well on the practical side, Eldrian had read a fair bit on Solar healing. In essence, it merely accelerated the body's natural regeneration to extreme speeds. But on big things, such as breaks, it needed a lot of guidance.

Straight away the stinging surged. Miss Belamy pursed her lips as she enticed bits of bone to knit themselves together again. The magic stopped after a few moments and she scrunched her mouth to one side.

"There are fragments scattered around. They won't return on their own."

Eldrian braced himself for what he knew was about to come. Miss Belamy changed her spell to levitation and, bit by bit, she found the shards of bone. Then came the hard part, pulling them back into place so that they would fit together correctly.

"Those grunts aren't helping me concentrate..." the cruel woman said. She paused her healing, reached over and pulled the gag from his mouth. "Bite your tongue instead."

"Why do you hate me?" Eldrian asked a moment later, struggling not to hiss at the pain. At least talking proved a slight distraction.

Miss Belamy, having returned to her work, didn't look away. "Who says I hate you?"

"You treat us orphans like dirt. Worse than that. And you more than the other adults."

"That doesn't mean I hate you."

A surge sent Eldrian's fingers clawing at the sheets before he could get a word in.

"Maybe I'm fed up with the lot of you," said Miss Belamy. "The way we give you a home, food, clothes. We mend your wounds and try to give you a better lot in life. But when it comes to listening and showing gratitude, it seems all of you are above that. Maybe I've just grown tired of it."

Another wracking of pain as splinters of bone pushed closer together and tried to reassemble themselves. He had to suspect that she was doing it to keep him quiet while she spoke.

"I'm sure Fiye told your friend to be careful on that part of roof. Indeed she should have watched you, but were you concentrating wholly on your work, or joking around?" Miss Belamy lifted her eyes to Eldrian's, raised a brow, then went back to healing. "I thought so. Still, she will take most of the blame because of your carelessness. Just as I would were I in her place. And none of you ever seem to learn."

At last the healing stopped and the sharp stabbing quickly died to a constant radiance.

"Or maybe you were right before. Maybe I do hate all of you... We'll resume later."

Miss Belamy stood and glided out the door.

Eldrian turned away and tried to clear his mind. He didn't need to glance over at the bed beside him to know how Yoled was faring. The Skytouched boy hadn't woken up yet. At least his wounds were healed. The visible ones.

===

Maybe the smell could be blamed for waking him in the end. The damp smell of the dorm had been troubling at first but Eldrian had eventually gotten used to it. Now this fresher scent seemed wrong so he opened his eyes.

There were leaves growing on him. More than that. A whole bed of ivy, almost as if the floor of a forest had decided that he should be included in it.

Eldrian sat up, pushing the plants aside with ease, and surveyed the infirmary. What was left of it. Now it seemed more like an indoor garden. The walls were overgrown with climbing coils of leaves while vines tangled down from the ceiling. A thick carpet of green ran across the floor, spotted with shrubs and saplings that were fighting for sunlight. The beds were as overgrown as everything else but even then he could tell that Yoled had vanished.

As Eldrian stared in wonder at the overnight-emerging jungle, a flash of movement caught his eye. Something rustled through the undergrowth. It peeked out from a bush laden with bright purple berries. Then it scurried out the door to the infirmary but not before he got a good look at the creature.

It had a long nose and big, thin ears that flopped as it moved. Swishing bristles covered its back like fur and ran all the way along its body until stopping at its tail. A fairy parg.

It seemed strange, but Eldrian suddenly had the sense that he should follow the beast. He cast the rest of the vine-blanket aside and slid to his feet, momentarily forgetting his broken ankle.

Eldrian flinched in anticipation of agony but none came. He looked down and found his skin bare of marks and his leg as straight as ever. Miss Belamy must have returned while he slept to finish the job. So without thinking any further on it, he walked with confidence in pursuit of the tiny-quilled creature.

Whatever had brought about this overgrowth clearly hadn't stopped with the infirmary. It seemed that every inch of the manor had been reclaimed by plants. In a way it was fortunate as it meant that the fairy parg could hardly move without rustling the leaves of something. Eldrian had only to stop moving for a second in order to hear a faux-aquatic hissing in the room ahead.

If the inside of the manor had become overgrown, the gardens were now a jungle. Only a few slivers of sun were able to reach the ground between the immense canopy of leaves overhead. Some trees Eldrian felt certain weren't even native to the area. Fortunately the fairy parg never strayed towards the gardens or it might have been lost forever. Instead it made its way across the ravine, bridged now by a dense tangle of roots rather than anything Kelad-made.

At first Eldrian didn't recognize the spiral stairway when they began to ascend it. Some of the walls had been punched out by the jungle and the climb resembled a maze more than a loop of stairs. None of the steps was visible anymore, lost under leaves and dirt alike. Yet still the fairy parg scampered onwards. What did it want up here? They were supposed to be burrowing animals.

The blackened door looked oddly bare with no warding runes occupying it. It even stood open, pushed out by the snaking stretches of vines that seemed to cover everything. Eldrian caught a glimpse of the parg as it flashed through a gap on the floor. He stepped over the greenery and squeezed through after it.

Being so high, the girl's tower managed to poke above much of the surrounding vegetation. Blades of light streamed in through myriad cracks that the plants had made in an effort to escape. Eldrian scanned the room but he couldn't see any signs of its usual occupant.

The tangles seemed to grow thicker the deeper he stepped inside. His eyes were fixed on the center where a black flower grew. Large didn't begin to describe it. The petals stood almost twice as tall as him. An ebony wall to protect the secrets inside. And every root, every vine and every inch of ivy seemed to be growing outward from it.

Eldrian ran his fingers over the flower's massive petals They had a velvety feel to them, cool to the touch. He peeled the edge of one back, careful not to damage it. Then came another layer and more still until at last he reached the center. He yelped at what he saw.

There lay the girl, curled up in the flower's core. The roots enveloping the manor appeared to be growing from her such that she had almost vanished underneath them. Eldrian pushed in and fell to her side. She wasn't moving. And yet her body looked intact despite the roots emerging from her skin. He shook her arm.

Wake up, he tried to shout but his voice sounded distant.

Wake up. Wake up!

Eldrian jolted awake and glanced around the infirmary. Only the dim light from an oil lantern in the hall aimed to fight the gloom of the early morning. Shadow bathed over everything else yet he could tell that the vines were gone. A quick check on Yoled revealed that the boy still slept, though not naturally.

He rubbed his forehead and flinched as one of his many injuries bit back at the contact. What had that dream been about? Already it was fading but he distinctly remembered vines everywhere and something about a fairy parg. And the girl. The girl was dead.

Some folk said, or wrote, that all dreams had meaning but Eldrian didn't know if he believed that or not. Especially considering some of the ones he'd had in the past. The dream about the entire town turning into strawberry pudding came to mind, unless it wanted to tell him that he liked strawberry pudding. A waste of effort, since he already knew.

"Yoled?" Eldrian hissed.

The Skytouched boy's chest still rose and fell. He'd been given water, carefully, but they hadn't tried food. Folk could survive a long time without eating so there wasn't any urgency just yet. That didn't keep the worry at bay. Why hadn't he woken up.

"Yoled!" louder this time. In the dark, it almost looked as if there came some movement; only the flicker of candlelight. 



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 08



Chapter Eight

"Sire, I told him how far the rot went. I told him it had spread further underneath the slats."

"So either he didn't listen or he forgot. Whichever the case, it shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Clearly master Yoled cannot be trusted with the more difficult tasks, correct, Fiye?"

"Yes Sire, but I did tell him."

"I don't doubt the fact. But should this instance ever come round again, make sure to tell both of them. We can't trust the orphans to relay the correct information to one another. They're only children. 

"Yes Sire."

"Good, that will be all. Your roofing crew is likely waiting and there's much more to be done now. Which brings me to you, Paetin."

"The boy's leg is coming along well but the other one hasn't awoken yet."

"Well there's not much we can do about that until we can find a proper alchemist. Soon, I should hope, or the boy may have to graduate early."

"Another thing, Sire. The girl's earmuffs again..."

"More with them? I thought Miss Belamy took care of it."

"She did, Sire. I made certain she did it right. The wounds were healed completely so these are new ones."

"In that case, are we wrong to be blaming the earmuffs?"

"My thoughts exactly, Sire. I think something may be troubling her."

===

He hadn't moved much this morning. His leg still hurt, most likely. But the mean one had been working her magic over it for several hours so it must be nearly healed by now. The other boy, meanwhile, remained asleep or unconscious. Neither were particularly interesting so the girl moved her voice to something else.

So long had she seen with the earmuffs on that she could hardly remember how things were supposed to appear. Could other Vocals see more than the narrow tunnel that made up her field of view? If so, she envied them. All but the closest objects looked, to her, as though they were at the end of a long, fuzzy tube. The sides made anything in her peripherals impossible to discern until she turned her voice to it.

The girl shuffled off her bed, already made, and padded over to one of the boarded-up windows. She sat in the chair waiting beside it and sent her voice through one of the many slivered openings where the big sheet of wood didn't quite meet the frame it meant to cover.

The orphans were already beginning their toiling in the garden and some of them jumped or startled as her voice passed over. One boy, leaning over the pond to fish out a branch, managed to fall in and surfaced with a splutter. She laughed at him and she made sure he heard. He would have done the same were the tables turned.

The minutes rolled by quickly as she watched the happenings of the house. The adults didn't mind her watching so much. Only if she watched for too long and only if they weren't the bad woman.

A tap on the girl's shoulder brought her out of watching. Without turning around, she cast her voice towards her visitor. Paetin. Then she turned around.

Can we talk? motioned his lips.

The manor's stories called so she didn't reply.

Paetin frowned. You're too old for this game. I know you can see what I'm saying.

Something important then. She wanted eyes so that she could roll them. The other races didn't realize how lucky they were to be able to convey emotions with the expressions on their faces rather than words. "Fine," she said with utmost care.

Paetin walked back to where another chair stood and he dragged it over before sitting down. How are the earmuffs?

"Bad."

I can see.

Absentmindedly she reached up to brush a wisp of dry-crimsoned hair away from the tight, metal prisons.

But they've rarely been a problem in the past. Now twice in as many weeks?

Again she had nothing to say. Paetin could guess it if he thought himself so clever.

What's wrong, child? Would you like to tell me?

No.

You know Miss Belamy has to be the one to heal you every time this comes up. I didn't realize you liked her so much.

Nothing.

Paetin let out a deep exhale. We're here to help you. When you remember that, we'll talk again.

She didn't watch him go. Her voice returned to the world outside and she decided to travel as far from the manor as she could. She walked her vision through the orchards, passing over the occasional orphan and amusing herself at the few who dropped their burdens when they sensed her focus.

Through the fence she passed and into the wheat fields. The golden strands waved and clouded her vision which bothered her in a way it wouldn't have without the earmuffs. Yet another reminder of the shackles that plagued her life. So why hadn't it been a problem until recently?

She shrugged the question away and continued her journey. This path she had wandered before and she knew the town of River Run stood a ways downhill. How amusing it had been to shock those folk with her voice. But Paetin had gotten wind of it somehow and they didn't want her doing it anymore. Instead she flowed uphill until she found a path between the fields. It looked to have been trodden recently. Strands of grass were making their gradual unflattening off the packed dirt. The crushed shapes clearly belonged to no beast.

Her voice wandered on, meandering through the lanes. At last she came upon a Solar, strolling with a stick in one hand and a dog at his side. The breeze must have been making quite a hiss through the wheat as it took the farmer nearly a minute before he flinched and looked around.

His lips moved. Hello? Who's there.

She said nothing, content instead to simply watch for a while. When the farmer did nothing else interesting, she moved on.

A fence came into sight. The boundary of his property? The girl flowed over it to a place where the wheat didn't grow. The earth here had been ground free of grasses by the passing of wagons and horse hooves. She considered both directions but decided to continue uphill, away from River Run. Eventually the curve of the ground began to shallow until it stopped completely at the peak. Any other Kelad, Vocals included, might stand up here and stare out over the view. Not her, she struggled enough to see this spot at all. The blurring had begun. Her travels were reaching the limits of her voice.

She slipped across an animal that slept in the curling roots of a tree. She didn't know the creature's name. It had thick, brown fur, massive claws on its forepaws and two tails. Its ears folded back as she looked at it. Then its head, on a long neck, lifted from its paws and it glanced around. The creature pulled back its lips to bare teeth and a silent growl emerged. 

The girl didn't fear the creature, she wanted to play with it. To rub her fingers through its fur and scratch its chin. She'd seen other folk do the same with animals. Why should this one be any different?

Her voice returned to the darkness of her bedroom. Several hours must have passed as she felt painfully stiff. A walk around the tower? That would be nice.

The orphans' jobs must have shuffled around recently as the gardeners all looked different. The girl's heart rose a little when she realized her holiday would be coming up. A chance to be free of these wretched earmuffs. A chance to go out into the garden. A chance to hear again.

===

Breakfast passed by in the infirmary and, after another agonizing session with Miss Belamy, a jailer sent Eldrian on his way. Two days of bedridden healing sessions yet he still needed a crutch to limp towards the eating hall where lunch would soon appear. Despite the pain, he had to admit that the chief child wrangler had done an impressive job. She clearly had a strong grip on light magic to have been able to heal such an injury so quickly. Full recovery would take a while longer.

"Hoy, shrimp!"

Eldrian flinched as Iyda strode past and slapped him on the back. "Hoy," he mumbled.

"Miss Belamy didn't hurt you too bad, did she? I remember I cut my hand on kitchen duty one time and she folded it back up so fast it hurt more than the knife."

He smiled at the imagery but shook his head. "Nah, it's fine now."

"Cause if it's not, I could always show her a thing or two about pain." Iyda punched one hand into the palm of the other several times.

"Show who about pain?" asked Miss Belamy as she rounded the corner ahead.

"The girl in the tower," Iyda replied without missing a beat. "She prola ripped the roof out from under this shrimp when she saw him up there."

"Indeed she might have," mused Belamy before stalking past.

Iyda watched the woman go, twin ribbons trailing from her hair, and stayed silent for several seconds after, just to be sure. "She's like a ghost, ah? How does she always know?"

Eldrian shrugged as well as he could when one arm kept his balance.

Some kind of salad seemed to be today's fare. Iyda shoved a younger kid aside so that she could sit with Eldrian at the lower end of the table.

"Otherwise they might think to swipe your food since you're weak," she explained.

He didn't know whether she intended that to be nice or not. Too complicated to think about right now. "What job are you on now?" he asked instead.

"Room cleaning. It's boring cause there's never anything to break or stomp on. And there's nothing wrong with dirt anyway." 

Eldrian nodded, not necessarily in agreement.

They finished eating but when the time came to go to their jobs, two problems arose. The first, nobody had yet approached him with his placement for the day. Or the month, if that stage had arrived. The second problem, the bigger of the two, were the jailers who entered at that moment, led by Paetin.

The Skytouched clapped his hands together in a single, booming crash. "Attention, children. There will be a vacation day today. You should all know the rules, no going outside and no wandering to the upper manor."

The silence of the orphans maintained until the jailers had safely left earshot. Then a cloud of excited murmuring took over.

"What's a vacation day?" Eldrian asked through the buzz.

"It's for the girl. They let her sit in the gardens all day. Sometimes they even put a mask over her mouth and take her earmuffs off if she wants to hear instead of see." After explaining, Iyda twisted away to chatter to some girl from her dorm.

So they were giving the girl a break from her prison. It sounded dangerous but if they were gagging her as Iyda said perhaps it wouldn't be a problem. 

One by one the children milled out from the eating hall, coming up with all sorts of ideas on how to spend the day. With the outdoors off limits, the hallways of the manor ended up being rather crowded. So many orphans flowed in a single direction, towards the structure's western side. The library? It couldn't be. Not when half the children struggled with reading to such a degree.

By virtue of being pushed along, largely owing to injuries, Eldrian found himself traveling with the children to whatever destination they had in mind.

They wanted to see her, he realized at last. Groups of children crowded near the windows overlooking the garden from the second floor, their noses pressed against the glass.

"Where is she?" asked a child who looked to be about seven.

"Prola not let out yet," answered the boy next to her.

The minutes ticked by with Eldrian wondering if he should really join the others in watching. The library called and so did a dozen other opportunities. And Yoled still slept. They needed to help him. But just as he was about to peel away from his spot by the large, paneled windows, the girl appeared.

A procession travelled with her, led by Sire Mastro who held the girl's hand. The sun stained her ebony hair and the traces of blood from before were no longer present. Her black occumarks looked sad in this light. Almost as though she had cried tears of liquid shadow.

Gagged indeed was the girl. A knot of cloth secured her words and wrapped around her head. What a vacation...

Sire Mastro whispered something to her and she nodded. They moved past the first pond towards the farther reaches of the grounds, ultimately stopping by the tree that he, Iyda and Yoled had lazed under a few days ago.

The girl smoothed her plain pants and she sat among the ivy with her legs folded up. Blind. Sire Mastro left her then but a pair of jailers stayed behind, though they waited at a distance.

The girl didn't move for a minute. Then for five. Then ten. She merely sat and waited, listening to the world around her.

One by one the orphans left when they realized that she had no intention of putting on a show. But Eldrian stayed. And he wondered what the girl's life must be like. He wondered how a world always half-sensed would feel. Was she happy?

He wondered these things as the sun slowly set and orange stained the sky. Even as his legs and back grew stiff he wondered on. But he didn't know why.

===

"Dajoo know where they're goh put you for the first month?" asked Ajan, his voice slicing smoothly through the dorm's morning chatter that went on beside them.

Eldrian shook his head and looked at his ankle. A long, fleshy scar marked where the skin had ruptured and sent a bit of bone poking out. Now he only had the faint ghosts of pain and a limp when standing. The crutch wasn't really necessary anymore. "I didn't see all the jobs yet."

"They'll prola give you one anyway. That's what they've done before, I think." Ajan moved away after that. The call to breakfast had sounded a minute ago and all the boys were steadily heading on their way.

With a faint hiss, Eldrian stood up. The ankle still stung a little and it felt odd to walk on. Such a fast recovery was bound to have some strange, lingering effects. But they were better than months of being bedridden, maybe longer.

That thought dragged Yoled up with it. Still unconscious and showing no signs of awakening.

"I've no idea why," Miss Belamy had replied when asked. Her flat tone made it impossible to tell whether or not she cared. But she had to, right? Even if only for the sake of a healer's ego.

At any rate, whatever healing Yoled required happened to be beyond anything that anyone at the manor could produce. Visible, physical injuries were easy compared to unseen ailments of the mind. And, as time went on, it became increasingly definite that this was what afflicted the flit.

Breakfast passed slowly and alone. Iyda had her friends from her dorm to keep her company at the other end of the eating hall. None of the other boys that Eldrian shared a room with seemed interested in reaching out as Yoled had. Such was the quiet in his tiny corner of the world that Eldrian barely noticed when the rest of the orphans filed out to their jobs.

"Cleaning today." Having said those two words, and nothing more, the jailer retreated back down the hall to wherever he'd originated.

It took a fair degree of wandering before Eldrian managed to locate the rooms that the cleaning crew were up to. From there, the process seemed simple. Wash everything, clean everything. Make the beds, sweep the floors, dust surfaces. The work, and the fact that Eldrian was placed on a different detail, meant that the chance to speak to Iyda never arose. 

His hands ached and his knees stung by the time the day came to an end. For the first time Eldrian noticed how much less the eating hall buzzed with chatter after working for so long.

"It's not that," said a boy next to him. "They're probably picking a new carer for the girl tonight."

"Why?" Eldrian asked. He'd only spoken up with an absent mind but now the conversation had shot to a far more interesting place.

"They do every month."

"No, why does that make everyone quiet?"

"In case they get in trouble and get volunteered for the job."

Eldrian leaned high on the bench and peered over the heads of the other orphans. Now that his attention had been placed on the right track, it seemed obvious. So many children looked anxious, their eyes either darting to the hallways or looking blankly forwards. Certainly nobody seemed to care so much over an accidental spill. And Dodeb nowhere to be seen. Or was the girl's dinner occupying him?

"When do they—"

"Attention, students."

Like panicked sheep, every head jolted towards the south-west hallway. There stood Paetin with two other jailers at his back. Others stood guard over the remaining ways out.

"Again a month has passed and again your jobs have changed." Paetin's eyes wandered the hall, pausing on nobody. "All but one, that is. There are a few who've joined us since so I'll remind you all. The girl requires a new caretaker. Whoever is chosen shall be tasked with bringing her meals and whatever else comes up. If none step forwards, a volunteer will be chosen."

Paetin continued to sweep his gaze back and forth over the children. He almost looked like a farmer deciding which of his herd were ready for slaughter. "You there. Your name?"

The young sprout who flinched under the man's gaze, uttered a peep and shivered to her feet. "Celiope, mister."

"Well Celiope you're about to make a new friend. You've been selected as the girl's caretaker."

Celiope cringed. She shook her head, not to disagree but to dispel the bad dream. It didn't work and tears started to run. Did they really expect someone so young, maybe nine, to do the right job? Perhaps fear would be the incentive.

"That is, if nobody wishes to volunteer on your behalf." Again moved Paetin's predatorial surveyance across the eating hall. His eyes seemed to flicker across those of every child, challenging them to step up to the call.

When Eldrian fell beneath them, he suddenly wanted to answer. Stand up, say 'yes, I'll look after her'.

But she might still be mad at me. He thought back to the verge of eruption that she had seemed on during their last encounter. 

"Nobody? In that case, I'm sorry to say it's you, Celiope. Dodeb will explain the details now and help you on the first day."

The poor girl shuffled out from her bench, everyone in the eating hall watching on. She walked over to where Dodeb stood, then waited. Tears stained her face and made little trails through the thin layer of grime. How long had she lived here to know the process?

"The rest of you may return to your—"

"Wait!"

Eldrian looked around, startled by his own voice. He'd stood up. When had that happened? "I'll do it instead. She doesn't have to."

What am I saying? he wondered. But he looked at Celiope and the way her chest rose and fell in tiny trembles. She didn't deserve this.

The corners of Paetin's mouth curled up for a moment. "Cruel of you to let Celiope suffer for so long. Why do you want to take her place?"

Eldrian shrugged. He wanted to think that he would have done the same for any orphan but, in truth, he didn't know. Maybe he wanted to be a hero like in the stories. Bossman had already denied one attempt. I'll save you from this, Eldrian thought as he looked across the dining hall at all the surprised faces. This is your home, not mine. Not mine, father.

But that reason rang hollow. Maybe he wanted to apologise to the girl. To see if she was okay. Everyone here seemed to treat her like some creature in a menagerie. Then again, she was a prisoner. A killer. Did she not deserve her lot? 

No reason, no matter how big or small, felt wholly true to Eldrian. They attacked him together to force his hand. And in some twisted way, likely no different to the orphans gawking at her earlier, he wanted to see her again. So he lied instead. "Celiope's too young. She might make a mistake."

Paetin's considering eyes remained locked with his for a few moments more. "Alright children, swap places," the Skytouched man said at last.




The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 08



Eldrian's legs shuddered him forwards. He passed by Celiope but she didn't look at him as she preoccupied herself with wiping tears away. If she felt any gratitude, it didn't show.

Why did I do that? he asked himself. But then a better question arose. Why is everyone so afraid?

Bossman stood waiting when Eldrian to the dorm. Behind the spark were the rest of the boys but he looked like a leader who would thrive in the face of inadversity. "You're crazy!" he finally shouted.

Instructions with Dodeb hadn't taken long. Only a week had passed since spending a day helping the Earthborn kid so there wasn't much to refresh on. As such, both boys felt that Eldrian didn't need to be accompanied for the first trip tomorrow. Everyone else in the dorm found that a little less sane.

"Maybe she's not as dangerous as you think." Eldrian replied.

Bossman scoffed. "You only think that cause you haven't been here long enough, ah."

"Ah," murmured the other children.

"That's not it. You're all scared for no reason." He stepped past the array of children.

"You dihn see how she turned that man to jelly," a boy added.

"I thought she made him pop," Eldrian shot back.

"Ah, she did that too."

"That doesn't make sense." Regardless, he turned to face them. "And I thought she threw him through the nets."

"Dihn you know?" said Bossman. "That wasn't the first person she murdered here. She murdered one before they caught her and put the earmuffs on, then she murdered some more after that."

Eldrian narrowed his eyes. Somehow this sounded too convenient. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

Bossman gave a shrug, along with some of the other lads. "You would've heard it soon enough. None of us thought you were dumb enough to want to meet the girl so nobody bothered to tell you sooner."  

"Well I don't care." He turned around, continued to his bed then lay on it. If they wanted his attention again, it would be hard earned.

Without being able to coax out a response, the dorm slowly went back to its nightly activities. The unanimous consent of the room seemed to be over Eldrian's stupidity. He could still hear them mumbling to one another about how dumb it was. Let them.

The girl didn't bother him. All these stories were too strange and too convenient. The only thing that held his attention was that dream from before. The one where she had been eaten by the plant. But tomorrow the caretaking began and tomorrow the answers would arrive. 



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 09



"How did she fare?" 

"It's hard to say, Sire. A trip outside has done her well in the past but this time seemed different somehow." 

"We'll keep a close eye on her. And there's a change of servant today, isn't there." 

"You think a new face might make things worse? I can alter things." 

"No... proceed. We don't want the children to think that something's wrong. And besides, she's rarely paid any mind to who brings her food." 

=== 

The tray trembled as another wave of shivers took hold. Eldrian paused in his steps to steady himself. No doubt the girl would be unhappy with her food ending up on the floor this first day. 

All alone. Dodeb had some other job now and the key to the tower rested heavy in the confines of Eldrian's pants pocket. With a deep breath, he stepped onwards. 

Never before had the bridge seemed quite so long nor the ravine so inviting by comparison to what lay ahead. Logic told him not to fear. Logic said that this terror had been faced before without harm. Logic went unheeded for his heart shouted far louder with its dull, steady beats. 

Remember, she'll probably be sleeping. Just put the tray down and leave. Dodeb had explained the night before. And don't bother her or startle her or anything like that, ah? 

Those words had made it sound as if the girl were some soulless creature that existed purely to exist, not a living Kelad. Either way, it didn't matter. He had no plans to heed those instructions. 

Up and up the steps he climbed in a constant struggle with his burden. The crutch remained back at the dorm, no longer needed, but a limp still filled Eldrian's gait. Ordinarily it didn't get much in the way; stairs changed that. 

At last the door loomed over the spiral's crest. Eldrian stopped before it, set down the girl's breakfast, and withdrew the key from his pocket. He pressed it into the lock and fumbled with the right way to turn. A dull thunk marked the lock's acceptance and he picked up the tray before pushing inside. 

Gloom, of course, greeted Eldrian's eyes. He stood in the threshold for nearly a minute as he waited for his eyes to adjust. No girl in sight. Not yet, at least. With a deep breath, he strode inside, walking in a rigid line to the table where he placed her food. Then he moved back to the door and started to close it. The lock on the inside told him that he wasn't about to imprison himself. 

Would you really have time to unlock it again? Logic asked. No, not if things reached that stage. But at the very least, he could make a preemptive retreat. Maybe. Hopefully. 

Click went the door as bolts slid into place, sealing the tower once again. Eldrian turned around to face the girl's room, closed off at the moment. 

Just leave, begged Reason. She doesn't matter. 

A near-inaudible creak brought an end to that possibility. It had come from the girl's room. A footstep? In the minutes that passed, more noises emerged. Wood sliding against wood, something thudding shut, more creaks of the floorboards. Finally the girl's door began to swing ajar. 

Her voice hadn't yet graced his ears so she couldn't have seen him. Even when she emerged, padding through the dark, she didn't jump in fright at her uninvited guest. She passed Eldrian by, with barely two meters between them, like a ghost sliding on the air. Then came a scrape as she sat at her table and began on breakfast. 

How long could this go on until her voice finally chanced upon him? 

Don't startle her, Dodeb warned again. But she could be startled either way. Better to announce his presence, right? 

Eldrian's finger crept through the air towards the girl's shoulder. She had her onyxian hair running straight down her back and out of the way of eating. As always, her occumarks looked a bit like she had covered her face in the dark makeup that rich women sometimes wore and then cried profusely. But Vocals couldn't cry. 

His hand reached her and she jumped. A clatter resounded as her spoon slapped against the bowl of porridge. 

Immediately the girl's voice filled Eldrian's ears and she flowed to her feet. He flinched, stepped back and tried to look as unthreatening as possible. 

"Who are you? You shouldn't be here," said the girl, her voice warbling and twisting every which way, distorted by her earmuffs. She pressed up to the wall behind her as though she were the one who needed to be afraid. 

That act made Eldrian's blood flow a little warmer. "Don't you remember?" he asked. 

The girl tilted her head towards the roof, then back again. "Ah, now go." 

The sternness in her voice almost made Eldrian obey. Almost. "I wanted to talk to you." 

Her occumarks creased a little in a frown. "Talk? No, you want to look at me more. You can't fool me. Just like all the others." 

"No, I want to talk, I swear. Just talk. I can't see anything in this dark" 

The girl looked down and her voice faded for a short while. Was she thinking about the offer? It sounded more as if it confused her. 

"It is dark... Nah, you have to go," she said at last. "Leave me alone." 

This time she sounded far more firm. A command rather than a request. Almost like Miss Belamy. 

"But—" 

"Go!" she shouted and it sounded as much a cry of terror on her behalf as it did his. 

Eldrian stepped back, turning around halfway across the room. His fingers stumbled over the lock as he keyed it open. She watched him as he ran back downstairs but her voice faded in the end. 

=== 

Food tasted bland. The walls and pictures looked bland and so too felt the floor beneath her bare feet. But it hadn't always been that way. In fact, just last week she remembered rolling out of bed in a good mood. Now everything seemed so gray, no matter how much effort she put into seeing colors. 

The girl tip-toed over to a window box on the north side of her tower. She let sunlight in for the plants now and then but they were from the north so a shortage of light didn't matter too much to them. Mostly they wrapped their sticky little tendrils around any insects that crept into her room and ate those instead. The one on the far right must have just caught a fly by the way its leaves were steadily curling towards the center. Yet she found no satisfaction in it. 

Nothing seemed to satisfy her this morning. Not the drawings she made nor the carvings that lay strewn about her bedroom. She stared outside at the goings on but found them mundane. Why? They hadn't changed. It almost felt as if she looked at them through a different voice. Impossible. Her earmuffs still sat on her head, wretchedly securing the world in its muteness. 

In the drudgery, the girl found her thoughts wandering with inevitability towards that boy from earlier. Eldrian? That sounded right. The same one who had crashed through her roof now brought her food. It seemed too much of a coincidence. Sire Mastro must have forced him into it as way of apology. Perhaps that was what the boy had wanted earlier. He could save the breath. 

She lay still upon her bed, voice silent and unseeing. Like this, the world vanished and time lost all meaning. Keladesh could be burning around her for all it mattered. She found herself hoping for exactly that. Maybe then the earmuffs would come off and everyone would beg for her magic to solve the problem. And then she could feel a brief satisfaction in telling them 'no'. 

The girl's voice crept out to inspect herself as she wondered why she thought those things. They felt alien in one way yet familiar and welcome in another. She fell silent again and scratched at the side of her head where a long curve of scabs and dried blood swept beneath her hair. The girl gave her earmuffs a twist, a tug and she cringed when the metal clawed in. As secure as ever. 

Nothing's changed, so what's wrong. 

=== 

"Dajoo see why you're so stupid now?" asked Iyda. Before getting an answer, she twisted away from the table and coughed into her arm several times. Her face was covered in dust and several cobwebs were caught in her hair. 

"Ah, I guess so," Eldrian mumbled when she looked back. 

"Good. So don't talk to her again." 

"I won't." He hadn't even seen her for the lunch delivery. The door to her room had been closed. Not the way Eldrian wanted to do things. But Iyda, every child here, in fact, seemed to be right. 

"Why dijoo even want to talk to her?" 

Eldrian shrugged. He barely knew his own reason. Maybe if he really thought it over he might come up with something but it hardly mattered. 

"Oh well." Iyda nibbled deeper and deeper into the core of her apple. She had to be reaching the tough parts by now. "Kaveyeda says she found a big nest of tunnel spiders in the cellar. It's too bad we missed it, ah?" 

Eldrian gave a nod that he didn't entirely agree with. Tunnel spiders were nasty things. Why did Iyda feel bad about missing them but not about the girl in the tower? 

"At least you have lots of time to read books now." 

Another nod. And read he had, for most of the morning. That had been part of the appeal of this task, originally. The chance to read between meals for the girl. But doing so alone reminded Eldrian too much of his old home. How often had he whiled away the hours with his face planted in the pages of a book? So deep and vivid where the journeys that, just earlier, he had looked up and been surprised to see the manor's library rather than the back garden of home. So rather than swimming neatly up from a story, he choked on the rude awakening of reality. 

"Why dajoo like books, ah? They're just pictures and words." 

Eldrian masked his smile. "I don't know, I just do. It's like you and stomping things." An easier explanation than the actual one. Iyda might understand it this way, too. 

The Earthborn girl thought about this for several moments but shook her head in the end. "Nah, stomping is everything. Reading is just your eyes." 

Only once Eldrian lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and the cobwebs growing on it, did he realize another interpretation of Iyda's words. You need eyes to read. Well, not exactly. Vocals had a special language, called litides, that had all lumpy letters so that their voices could find them easily. But how did the girl in the tower manage with her voice so shackled. Would she like to read?



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 10



"I see your visit was a short one. Is that good news or bad?" 

"Neither as far as I can tell, sire. The new carer is going well as any other, considering there is so little for him to do. Better seeing how he is so new to this life. I doubt the problem stems from him or his crashing through her roof the other day." 

"Something deeper then. Knowing our luck that will make it doubly hard to put to rest." 

"She isn't a child anymore." 

"Did I suggest she was? ...Ah, you mean... but she's fifteen, that's been going for years now." 

"Physically, perhaps. What if her power had been holding the rest in check until recently." 

"And what would you suggest we do about that theory? Poke around inside her head and see if anything's come loose? Even if it were possible, would anyone want to? You know what Dawn's words say about gazing into the void." 

"I know, sire. I only fear that, if this continues, we mayn't have the luxury of looking away." 

=== 

It needed to be something short. A long book and the girl might lose interest. He needed a story that could be resolved in an afternoon. Besides, if she did stay enveloped in the tale, this way she wouldn't pressure him to stay for hours until it ended. 

Maybe take two books? Eldrian wondered to himself. The shelves weren't turning up very many options that the girl might enjoy. There were the joke stories, yes, but she'd been so serious during his last encounters. 

Two books posed its own problems. Books weren't supposed to leave the library at all, let alone in pairs or more. Hiding two would be twice as hard as one. 

Don't do this, called the little voice of dissent. She won't even care. 

A part of Eldrian agreed. A part that had been growing by the minute. But it hadn't infested deep enough yet to win out so it went ignored instead. 

Running out of ideas, Eldrian plucked the book of Dawn off a shelf. A bit dry, maybe, but its stories were short and they were all about Dawn's miracles and actions over her hundreds of years. 

He stowed the book beneath the girl's lunch tray, clutched in his fingertips. The jailers were taller so their vantage point would keep his hands from looking too strangely placed. 

Head tilted firmly to his feet, Eldrian scurried through the hallways and across the covered bridge that joined the manor's parts. His legs pushed him up the spiral stairs that led ever upwards to the top of the girl's tower. 

=== 

"She prola wouldn't even understand," said Dodeb, laying upside down upon his bed in such a way that his legs went up the wall. "She's not like us, ah? Everything's different to her. That's why she kills it." 

"No it's not," Eldrian replied. The reading venture hadn't gone over very well. It hadn't gone over at all. He must have been in that darkened room for nearly an hour before giving up, and no sign of the girl. Not even her spectral voice creeping into his ears. 

The general consensus among the other boys in the dorm seemed to be that he was crazy. Bad enough to volunteer in taking care of the girl, worse that he wanted to talk to her. 

"You only want to cause you haven't been here long enough," bossed Bossman. 

Eldrian looked at him, shook his head. 

Bossman retaliated by jabbing his finger out. "Ah, it's not just the killings she does. There was a thunderstorm last year and she made the lightning hit the house." 

"All of it?" Eldrian asked. 

"Nah, just some." 

A coincidence. Besides, almost every one of the past few days revealed a new event that had been blamed on the girl. Whether or not they were true didn't matter at the moment. The girl didn't want to talk either way. That or she hadn't seen him, but with Dodeb she had always been regular in coming out to eat. 

"And she killed her parents, so leave her alone. Even if you do make friends with her, she might still kill you," Dodeb warned. 

So much consensus on the badness of the girl. He should have felt like listening to the warnings. He didn't. 

As another day of failure slowly trickled to a close, Eldrian thought back to the dream he had had of the girl. A tangle of vines slowly eating her and the manor. Vines thicker than any in the wild, feeding off her to grow massive and lush. Still so vivid a dream. Normally it would have almost faded by now. A memory of a memory. Against the overwhelming warnings to do otherwise, it seemed like the only reason to push forwards anymore. 

=== 

Sometimes the earmuffs made it hard to tell when the dreamland had faded away to reality. This was one of those mornings. The girl never dreamed of sound so the dull, cobwebbed beams of the ceiling could have just as easily been a vast scape of the ethereal, complete with monstrously over-sized spiders. 

That was a dream she had quite often, the house becoming infested with creepy crawlies, twisted beyond nature. Things with long, spindly legs and hooks on the ends of their feelers. Things that watched her from the walls or outside the windows. Crooked creatures that probably didn't exist outside the dream. If they did, she'd never seen one. Nor did she fear them. She didn't have her earmuffs on in the dream. She didn't have nightmares. 

Sometimes her voice wandered in the mornings, down to the dorms where most of the children still slept. She tried not to wake them as she watched. Some were heavier sleepers than others and these ones she had learned a while ago. If she woke before the sun rise, she would watch one all morning. Watch as her voice crept in and did strange things. Watch as the child shivered and trembled and sweated but didn't awaken until the last, agonizing second of their dream-selfs life. She never knew what horrors her voice instilled in these sleeping children for she had never seen them herself. She didn't have nightmares. The crooked things watched for fear that she might escape. 

"Quiet mother," said the girl as she threw back the covers to her bed. The words echoed silently in the room and numb in her mind. 

The girl stomped over to her dresser and threw on whatever her hands found first. Mother and father had breakfast ready downstairs. They were off to worship Dawn today. Dawn's day brought good breakfasts that sometimes had meat with— 

A lurch brought the girl's steps to a stop and her fingers curled tight around the handle of her bedroom door. 

Mother? she wondered. 

Time must have run away from her as an ache in the girl's outstretched arm snapped her out of wondering where that word had come from. Father too. Never had either been appropriate. She must have had both at one stage but such a time was lost to memory. Instead she had phantoms. A life that burst into existance, taking over her own and pretending to be real, until something snapped her back to the truth. 

A dream still. But here she stood, clad freshly with the morning. 

The girl sat down and clutched the earmuffs on her head, one in each hand. They'd been feeling tighter lately. 

No, tighter didn't fit. even when removed, as they had been in the garden a few days ago, something still felt wrong. It was her head that felt tighter. As though it were slowly filling up. 

No, the girl thought. Such an idea didn't bear entertainment, besides the fact it made no sense. 

Paetin, that wiry Skytouched, had been stopping around a fair bit lately. Trying to talk to her. In the past his visits had been short and confined to once a month, around the time that a new kid started bringing in her food. Part of her wanted things to go back to that. Another part, growing by the day, wished he'd stay longer. Yet he clearly didn't want to. She could see the same fear in his eyes that showed in everyone. 

The girl forced herself from her bedroom and trod towards one of the windows with their dusty boards keeping out the light. She sat down and sent out her voice. Nobody in the gardens yet. No children, at least. The dew glistening on leaves and spiderwebs told her that the morning had only just begun. Shadows crept long behind their makers. 

The outside didn't hold anything of interest. Instead she turned her voice to the black doors that guarded her tower. She looked just in time to see them closing. Immediately she swept her vision through the room. The boy had just walked in and presently squatted to the floor to retrieve the tray with her breakfast. 

Her voice went to the tray instead so as to not tip him off about her watching. It floated in his hands, across the room, and landed upon her table. The girl looked to the door again. Yesterday it had taken nearly an hour to open and close with his departure. And the boy had brought books too. Books! 

"Wait,"she said. 

The black doors stopped in their opening swing. She shifted her voice to him and saw him looking at her, puzzled. That might have made her mad in the past. But now she had begun to trust he didn't come to stare. Not only that. 

"Why dajoo want to talk to me?" the girl asked. As always, her voice sounded muffled through her own head. Nothing reached her ears from the outside. Who knew what she really sounded like. Sometimes, if she didn't focus enough on speaking, the other person would tilt their head and mouth a word like 'what?' or 'pardon'. 

Today the boy mouthed, "I thought you might be bored." 

Bored. Until recently, the girl hadn't realized that there could be a thing known as bored. Did that mean she had been bored all the time without end, or never once before? 

"Bored?" she asked. 

"Ah, because you're always stuck in this tower." 

Stuck in this tower. Another concept that had been slowly creeping into her consciousness. Until now she hadn't recognized it. But she wasn't really stuck in the tower. She'd just had a vacation out to the garden. Only... they never let her go very far, did they. And she could never leave between those times. 

The girl couldn't think of anything more to say so silence crept in. Somehow it seemed even more silent than the usual kind. As if the world had closed down. No moving or settling from the house as the morning heated up. Nothing in the world except herself, this boy and the room they both occupied. Time could have ended at the walls. 

"Do you want me to go?" the boy asked and he moved to do so. 

"No, wait... you can stay." 

=== 

The table had a wobble to it, something that Eldrian had never noticed before. It didn't wobble when he set the tray down. Only when the weight of his arms resting there fought with the weight of hers. He tried not to make it move too much. 

The girl's room. The girl's tower. The girl's place. All of it dark as ever. Vocals were fairly indifferent when it came to whether or not a room was lit but it felt so gloomy this way. 

"I don't know what to talk about," said the girl. This time her voice had a screech buried deep inside it. Like two pieces of rusty metal scraping together, only muted. 

"What's your name?" 

The black streaks of the girl's occumarks, like tears of ink, fell upon him. "Name? I don't have a name." 

"Everyone has a name. It's the first thing your parents give you." A little knot tightened in his chest when Eldrian said this. He pushed it away. 

"I don't have parents. Nobody here does." 

"But everyone used to. What name did yours give you?" 

The girl turned silent and motionless. Without eyes, and in the dark, it became near impossible to figure our what she might be thinking, if she was thinking at all. Watching those streaks of charcoal skin, cold and emotionless, revealed nothing but emptiness. What hid behind them, Eldrian had to wonder, and he grew ever more fearful that he might have overstepped an invisible line. Then she spoke. 

"I doh' know. What's your name?" 

He frowned. "It's Eldrian, remember?" 

Another second of silence. This had to be more thinking. Other folk, even other Vocals, moved or did things when they thought. Flickers of the eyes or twitches of the face. The girl went still and mute as a statue. 

"Eldrian's a good name," she said. "But I don't want one." 

"You don't want what? A name?" 

She nodded. "I don't need it. I know who I am without one. So does everyone else" 

He couldn't find a fault in that reasoning. At the same time, it seemed like the sort of reasoning that, just because it had no faults, still managed to be wrong. Its flawlessness became its flaw. 

"The jailers never told you your name?" 

The girl shook her head. "Or they don't know it either." 

"Never? Never in all the time you've been here?" 

No. 

"How long have you been here?" 

The girl became still with thought. "As long as I can remember. The first thing I remember is looking at a window downstairs with a spider living in a crack in the frame. A little black one that had just caught something in its web. But I don't know if that's real or a dream." 

"How old were you— wait, downstairs? You used to live downstairs?" 

She nodded and her curtains of black hair bobbed with her head. "In the house." 

"When did they put you up here?" 

For a moment, the girl froze with thought as normal. But her occumarks soon creased and her face folded in discomfort. "When I... and he..." 

She stopped again as her fingers curled to form fists. A shot of fear stabbed into Eldrian's heart at the thought that he might have instigated something unsavory. When the girl began to speak again, he realized he had indeed.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 11



"Last I checked she was downstairs, sire. In the drawing room." 

"Could you tell if she is taking to the manor." 

"If not the manor, certainly one of its windows." 

"This isn't the time for jokes, Paetin. I need to be sure that she will be okay before we start taking in other orphans." 

"Well sire, it's only been a little over a week. Something like this will take time, I'm sure. She's young yet so the memories should fade but they're still fresh for now." 

"I suppose so. It's a tricky task of course. More so given the cause of her being here." 

"Impressive too, from a grim point of view." 

"Mmm." 

"If I may be so bold, sire, it may be easier to find the best way for her to integrate if I knew the full story. The one you've been skirting around this whole time. I can see its shape, sire, even if I don't know its contents." 

"Sharp of you. It's complex. I— you know I trust you Paetin." 

"Of course, sire." 

"Then trust me when I say I know little more than you do and I would tell you were I able. I wish to but I cannot. I don't even know where the girl has been in the two years since the incident. That should tell you all that you need to know, understood. You've always been as loyal as any could ask." 

"I understand, sire. All of it." 

=== 

The web still quivered like the strings of an instrument but the fly's fight was over. A small spider but a large catch and just as large a job wrapping it up. The spider wasted no time in starting. Folds of web unwound from its abdomen as it carried them forwards to entomb the already entangled insect. Every second saw the fly slowly vanish beneath a deepening curtain of white. 

The girl knew that feeling, though she didn't know from where. That silky smothering that held you still and dormant but didn't choke you out. 

It's like wearing these earmuff, she told Eldrian, breaking the story for a moment. 

The spider made one final loop around the pod that had once been a fly. It stopped for a moment, as if to inspect its work, then left the cocoon and began fixing the damage that its catch had done. 

Some spiders wove beautiful webs that hung between trees and plants and caught morning dew. When that happened they gleamed in the sun like Sire Mastro's chandeliers. He had a lot of those. Each one hanging from the roof like a spider web.  

This spider's web looked tangled and messy, even when it had apparently finished as it scurried back to its crevice in the window frame. Yet its catch still waited on the silken threads. Had it forgotten? She kept watching to be sure. 

Elsewhere in the house, or sometimes in the same room as her, there came the sounds of life and movement. Footfalls upstairs or on the floor behind, dampening to cross rugs. Lots of people seemed to live here and all of them busy. Some cleaned some gardened. Always work to do. 

Had the spider gone home to clean as well? Delicately as she could manage, the girl pushed her voice past the threshold of the spider's home but disappointment greeted her immediately. Nothing in here but empty space and a motionless arachnid. 

She didn't want to wake the spider so she retreated from the window. 

The house opened up to her as her voice flowed out to fill every nook. 

It's been so long since I could see like that. 

She was young at the time, and her mind always felt fuzzy - still did - but somehow it seemed like she didn't belong in the house. Everyone had a purpose there, she'd learned that quite quickly. There were the gardeners, the maids, the cooks and kitchen hands, the stableboys, drivers, menders. Then there was Paetin and Sire Mastro, overseeing it all. So where did she fit in with everything. 

Everywhere the girl walked, the feeling followed. In the kitchen the cooks skirted around her as though she were some new piece of furniture that had suddenly sprung up. Nobody said anything, even when it felt like she must have been rather in the way. 

Once, out by the rose bushes, one of the gardeners had tripped over the girl's foot, unaware that she had come to stand behind her. A moment of flustered anger came over this fallen Earthborn woman til she looked up and saw the girl's face. Then her features softened like a wet rag and she apologized over and over. 

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there," the woman blathered as a trickle of blood began to run from her scraped knee. 

And she said your name? asked Eldrian. 

Mhmm, the girl nodded. 

Do you remember it? 

No. That was the other thing. The other side of the fuzziness. So many holes in her childhood. Nothing before the spider, not even a blur. No home before this, parents, gardens. Sometimes she dreamed up those sorts of things but she could tell they were fake. They changed every time. All the solidity of the world occupied itself in the confines of her vision from the tower. 

The girl padded on bare feet across the drawing room and began to skip once she reached the hall. Sire Mastro didn't like her running in the house, or anything more vigorous than a walk. But her voice swept around and found him nowhere in sight. 

She passed through the sun room where the air felt hotter than even outside. The plants here were so much greener. So strange and tangly with big, broad leaves that sparkled from the moisture on them. She didn't linger long, not in these robes. The air felt clammy and wet and it always seemed to build up under her clothes. Then everything stuck together and that meant having to take a bath later. Bathes always seemed to do funny things to her voice if she opened her mouth underwater. Even an innocent gasp for breath could send big bubbles of sound bouncing away. Bathes weren't good. 

Next came the library with its walls and walls of books. Sometimes the other folk around the house could be found in here, reading from the pages of something or other. Not today, to her disappointment. Nobody to read to her. And she still couldn't figure out the funny markings on the pages. 

Then the girl saw it. She'd seen it before, every time she came to the library. But those past times had been in the presence of others so she could never investigate it the way she really wanted to. 

It stood next to a porcelain lamp. The sweets case. A little box balanced on one of the stands beside the reading sofas. She knew it had sweets in it. She'd seen Sire Mastro take one in the past and pop it in his mouth, when he hadn't known she was watching. But they weren't for little girls, or so the housefolk said. 

She crept up on the case like a cat stalking mice. Her feet moved silently upon the rugs. Elsewhere in the house, someone called to someone else and a door slammed shut a little too loud. 

This place always felt alive. Moving. Watching. But not today. The house had its attention elsewhere. Nobody watched the sweets. Nobody but her. 

The girl placed one knee on the sofa, then the other. Her feet were soon to follow but not before another sweep of her voice around the room and the hallways leading off from it. Feet weren't allowed on furniture, they made things dirty. But she had to in order to properly reach the case. 

A polished lid of silver, rimmed with two spiraling snakes and topped with a handle shaped like an ivy heart, blocked the girl from her prize. She pinched the silver in her fingertips and placed it upon the sofa's back. 

Sometimes the folk of the house told her stories of great adventurers and the treasures they came upon. Looking in at the trove of sweets, the girl felt as though this moment might fit as a fable too. Colorful wrappers abounded and the smell of sugar and honeyed wafers wafted to her nose. Several were missing but more than she could count remained. 

Just one, thought the girl. Otherwise they might notice. 

Her hand slid out, stretching from the safety of her robe, and hovered above the bounty. Which one? What did they taste like? Mixed together like this, she couldn't tell which flaunted a scent of strawberry and which promised peach. Some beckoned with blackberries while others advertised apple. A fruit salad of flavors, but indistinguishable from here. 

A pale yellow wrapper caught the girl's voice and she plucked it from the case. The smell said lemon when she lifted it to her nose. But not a puckering kind with which the fruit normally bit. A springtime taste that would surely be sweet.  

The paper crackled like a leaf as the girl unwrapped her prize. A hard sweet, but not sticky. Not immediately, at least. She rolled it between her fingers, feeling the rough, round shape. Then she placed it on her tongue and curled it into her mouth. 

The flavor came immediately, exactly the taste she had expected. A meadow of yellow with bees in the air and flowers filling the breeze with their scent. She bit down and the shell of the sweet shattered, letting flow a syrup that had a pleasant sourness to it, not severe. Sugary goodness coated her tongue and warmed her tastebuds. She sighed a satisfied hum at the flavor, sucked it all together, then swallowed. 

The memory remained in her mouth for several seconds. Finally it too faded, leaving only longing. 

Her hand crept forwards again, before she could stop it. Two then, and who could say that one of the other housefolk hadn't taken them? 

A pink wrapper, this time. A strawberry smell. The paper crinkled and she placed it flat upon the sofa's arms, careful to avoid tears. Something so pretty should stay intact. 

The strawberry sweet didn't burst with syrup when she bit it. Instead it had a feathery filling that tried to cling to her teeth. Delicious nonetheless, though it didn't really taste like a normal strawberry. And a bit too sugary as well. The lemon ones were better and it seemed sad not to leave on her favorite. 

Without stopping to think, the girl reached for another, unwrapped it and placed it between her jaws. A splurt followed the crunch and she fell back to the meadow from before. She took her time with the taste. Her voice faded from the room, the rest of the world didn't matter. Without such a distraction she could focus more on the sweet. 

But as her vision shrank down, it passed over the yellow wrapper and she noticed, for the first time, markings upon it. Writing, she realized. The same little scratches and scribbles in the books that lined the walls. But what would they be doing on a sweets wrapper? 

The girl swallowed her mouthful, no longer interested, and brought her voice forwards again. She looked at the tiny marks, a soft blue. What did they say? The desire to know burned inside her. Asking one of the housefolk was out of the question. That would be the same as confessing to her pilfering. 

The first mark looked a bit like a tree from one side. Every wrapper had the same markings, she quickly confirmed. The next could have been a pile of dirt with a shovel sticking up, or a funny-looking wine glass, depending on which side was up. She had her voice practically pinned to the letter, all else forgotten, in the hopes that doing so would somehow reveal the secret. Maybe if she tried saying it. Just a guess, for she didn't know how. 

The girl opened her mouth and plucked the out the first sound that came to mind. "Maa—" 

"Hoy child," came a voice from before her. 

She jumped, nearly falling from the sofa. A man stood by the sweet case. One of Sire Mastro's folk, though she didn't know his name. Shadow covered his front from the sunlight streaming through the big windows behind him. 

"Careful there, don't want to tumble," he said with a smile. 

"I— I didn't—" 

"Oh, don't worry about those. I won't tell." As if to prove it, the man took one, unwrapped it and placed it on his tongue. Compared to his frame, the sweet looked tiny. 

The chill and flutter of nerves slowly faded as the girl realized the danger had been imagined. She looked at the man, an Earthborn, and his friendly face. A big wide smile, rimmed in a somewhat scraggly beard that almost looked like a patch of moss growing on his cheeks and chin. His gray-brown eyes were honest with cheer. 

"What does this say?" The girl asked. She held up the sweets wrapper. 

"I heard you trying to read it. Give it another go, then I'll tell you." 

The girl looked at him a moment longer, then placed the wrapper on the sofa's arm and smoothed it out. The tree letter, then the shovel and dirt, or maybe a wine glass. Where had she been up to? 

"Maa... tsst... ee?" she sounded as a guess. 

The sounds were wrong, that became clear almost immediately. Books didn't do much when folk read them. It had always been a fact that confused her. Why spend so much time reading when so little happened. But this time, reading the sweets wrapper, something did happen. 

A spark flared, then a flame. It started small but grew in an instant before bursting with a hiss to engulf the arm of the sofa. 

"Whoa there!" the man shouted as he jumped back. "Careful." 

But the girl hardly heard him. Her voice found the fire, a swirling, ethereal mass viewed by sound. She scrambled away but it started to chase her. A creeping torrent that promised to hasten soon. 

The girl clutched at her hood. Somewhere else, the man had grabbed a pillow and began beating out the flames. Over and over came the sound of fabric striking fabric but the fire continued to spread. Every time it looked as if it may have been defeated, it sparked to life again. It was a magical flame, after all. Somewhere in the crevices of the girl's mind, she could feel it clinging on. 

She wanted it gone. The how eluded her, but that didn't matter. She needed a way to get rid of the fire. And, just like that, a way presented itself. A word, in fact, almost like the one that had made the fire in the first place. 

The word sprang forwards and promised to get rid of the fire. 

Say me, it begged as the man kept beating at the flames. Searing tongues engulfed half the sofa now. 

Say me and the fire will go. 

Her heart fluttered painfully in her chest. Footsteps pounded on the floors above and someone, somewhere, was shouting. It left a ringing in her ears. 

The girl held out her hand. She should never have done that. Her lips formed the first part of the word. Another mistake. Her sight found the fire and the man behind it. He looked up, his face sweaty and worried. 

"Sskali," she whispered. 

=== 

For a while, nothing happened. The girl had gone silent when she reached the word. She hadn't said it, of course, or the spell would have taken place and whatever it did would have happened. Instead the girl had spelled it out, letter by letter. 

"Then what?" he asked the dark silence. His eyes had adjusted long ago; the tower's gloom remained. Yet it didn't feel quite so bad anymore. 

The girl shuddered and the twin streaks of black fell upon him. 

"Then..." she breathed. 

"You tried to put out the fire." 

"I did." She pulled her legs onto the chair and wrapped her arms around them. "I did put it out. I put out everything." 

"I don't—" 

Then the girl started to explain and, even though she lacked eyes, Eldrian felt sure that they would have been blank. 

"I put out the fire with my magic. An icy wind, colder than the coldest winter day and stronger than the strongest squall. It blew in from behind me. It came straight out of thin air, right in the middle of the library. The shelves fell and books blew with the storm. The fire went out straight away and furniture went crashing into the garden. And the man." She stopped again, swallowed. "He was behind the fire so he was in the strongest part. It blew him too, right through the glass and into the garden and all the way across the grounds, tumbling and tumbling. But I stopped watching." 

"What happened to him?" 

"I didn't see. After that it's a blur again. I think Sire Mastro was there. And we were in the cellar. He said I wasn't in trouble and that the man was okay. But he was lying because I never saw that man again and a few weeks later they gave me these." The girl tapped her earmuffs. 

"And then they put you up here?" 

She shook her head. "Not straight away. There was another one. Years later. He... I was in the kitchen. I wanted to help the cooks with the soup. I had the earmuffs on still so it was hard but they let me anyway. I think they might have been afraid. But then this man came in, only I couldn't hear him come in. He was behind me when I was carrying the soup to the stove and I tripped and it splashed all over his trousers. It wasn't hot yet but he got mad anyway. He shouted and shouted and I couldn't understand him. I couldn't read lips properly then. Everyone had to talk to me slowly or I couldn't understand. But he shouted and his mouth moved too fast. I could tell he was mad because of how he moved. And he swaggered and stank of that stuff some of the folk drink. I just wanted him to go away so I said the first word that appeared. Only... only." The girl paused. Her jaw trembled a little, then clenched together. She took in a sharp breath through her nose. "Only, because of the earmuffs, it didn't work like it was meant to. It went after one of the cooks, not the man. And it didn't make the cook go away, it got rid of him forever. All that was left was a little streak of black on the floor. I didn't see what the word did but everyone was screaming. They put me in the tower the next day but I think they'd been planning it before that." She breathed out. Barely visible in the dark, a bead of sweat rolled down the girl's nose before she brushed it off. 

"Was it one of the orphans, the cook?" Eldrian asked when it seemed safe to speak. 

"This was before them. I liked that cook. His name was Omarit Vansen. Sometimes... sometimes, when I was feeling lonely, he would make me something sweet. Whatever I wanted." 

Finally a spark lit up in Eldrian's head. The shuddering breaths, taught features, pained words. The girl was crying. So much harder to tell without eyes from which tears could flow. Part of him wanted to step around the table and hug her but how would that be received? Instead he reached past the tray and took the girl's right hand in his. 

Her fingers closed around him immediately and she gave a shaky squeeze. "I don't like it here anymore," she managed. Her voice sounded more warped than normal. Distant too. "I want to leave." 

It felt as if a cold hand had just brushed down Eldrian's spine. He had to say something. "It's not so bad here." 

"You aren't locked up all the time." She shuddered. "I hate it. All the orphans do is stare at me. Even when I'm out in the garden they stare. I can tell. But you don't. You understand. You want to leave too, ah? Let's leave together." 

"You can't. We can't." 

"No," she moaned. "You— you have the key. Give it to me. I'll do it myself. You can pretend you dropped it or I took it from you." 

Eldrian pulled his hand from hers and stepped back. "I can't." 

"Please. Please. I hate it here. Everything's wrong. Everything's wrong." The girl stood, knocking her chair over in the process. 

"No." Eldrian stumbled back, fumbling for the key in his pocket. All the while he prayed that she wouldn't use magic. Not with the earmuffs on. 

In seconds he had crossed the room. Either the girl didn't trust herself to chase or she didn't want to. 

"Don't go!" she cried instead. "Please, don't leave me here. I don't want to be in the dark anymore. I want to go outside. I want to see and hear again. Tell them that! Tell them!" 

The door's slam cut the girl off and Eldrian sprinted down the stairs. Iyda had been right, he should never have tried this. Something in his presence must have set the girl off. Would she try to escape? 




The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 11



As Eldrian's feet pounded the steps, Sire Mastro's voice came rolling up into his thoughts. 

A prison would only hold her until someone did something extremely stupid.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 12



Chapter Twelve

"Have the others been briefed on the escape plan, Sire?... Sire?"

"Hmm? What were you saying?"

"The escape plan. I just want to be sure that, if need be, it won't turn into a bedlam."

"You think it might come to that?"

"She woke me up last night. She hasn't done that in months. What's more, she actually spoke to me from the tower. She said 'let me out'. That shouldn't have been possible with the earmuffs. Either she took a tremendous risk just to say those words, or she is learning to get past her shackles."

"You're sure you weren't—"

"Sire, we need to do something. We need to do it now."

"Mm, I always feared this day would come... Open up the tunnels, at night so the children don't know. Be sure all the paths are clear. But we're not going yet. That would only guarantee the seemingly inevitable. I'm starting to think that this has been building longer than we realized. But maybe we will be lucky and she will yet relax."

"Maybe..."

===

A spear of pain shot into Eldrian's ankle as he stepped out of bed. It still looked a little crooked from where it had healed in the days before. And sprinting down from the tower hadn't helped either. But the girl hadn't bothered him during the night. He had delivered her dinner an hour early, too so as to sneak by her watchfulness.

Nobody knew about what had happened in the tower. Eldrian had yet to tell a soul, nor would he.

It's all okay, Eldrian told himself. He shuffled past the bunks where the rest of his dorm still slept. The hour remained early.

Today Eldrian strode past the passage that would take him to the kitchen. He aimed for the manor's first floor instead. The infirmary, to be precise.

In the shade of the morning, a lone occupant lay in bed. He hadn't stirred since Eldrian had last checked in. Yoled, still sleeping as though he were dead, but not dead. Impossible to rouse. 

Miss Belamy had been there last time, working her healing magic to no avail. Mind problems were so much harder to fix, if they could be fixed at all. 

"Wake up," Eldrian whispered to the boy's silent and sunken face. 

They could give Yoled water. Dripped carefully and directly down his throat over several minutes. Food remained an impossibility and the days were seeing him waste away. Another week, Miss Belamy had said the day before last.

"I'm sorry." Unable to stand the deathly quiet any longer, he headed back through the house, towards the kitchen.

Because it was his fault. Of course it was. If he hadn't lashed out to grab Yoled's ankle and dragged the poor kid down too... Well, it didn't matter now.

Stupid, stupid.

This is life now. Work day by day and misery between. The kids of the manor were right, he was stupid. He had always been stupid, so much so that he had denied it for a while. But they were wrong about him running away. Yoled wouldn't be in this mess if Eldrian had kept trying to escape. 

His pace faltered and stopped beside a sofa that rested across a tall window, looking out over the front garden. Several pillows lay in the corners of the padded arms. Eldrian approached one and gave it a jab. Then another. Then a punch and a second one until his fists flew in a clumsy barrage that thumped against the fabric.

Why?! He shouted to himself.

Why did you send me here? I don't belong here. Everything would still be fine if they didn't have me! Why couldn't you just tell me whatever was so important before you died?! He shouted to his father.

Why put me on the roof with him?! Why send me here?! Why not let me leave? He shouted to Sire Mastro.

Why won't you wake up?!

Eldrian stepped back, his eyes falling on the pillow. Dents fell deep into the fabric and creases marred the white. He grabbed the corners, gave it a shake back to life, and replaced it. Even so, some of the damage remained clear. Eldrian walked away before any jailers strolled by.

Half an apple for the girl and a bowl of porridge with a drizzle of honey spiraling on top. Much nicer than some of her previous meals. Eldrian's stomach made a deep growl at the sight. 

The bridge no longer creaked when he walked across it. His feet knew where to tread. They carried him up the stairs, round and round in the flickering glow of the lighting wards. Eldrian went through the ritual at the door, the same as always. Down with the tray, key in the lock, turn, open it a crack, retrieve the key, up with the tray and enter. 

The girl sat in the middle of the room. The blackened streaks of her occumarks were on him.

Eldrian took a deep breath and walked to the side where her table stood. Only then did he hear her voice, so soft it could have been dreamt.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Eldrian turned around. She hadn't moved.

"Nothing," he said.

"There is. I can see it. You're... angry? But also sad."

"I'll be okay." He started towards the door, making a point not to look at her.

"Please don't go."

He kept walking.

"Please, stay like before. I won't get mad or anything."

No.

"I'm lonely."

He glanced at the girl. Her legs were hugged to her chest now, knees right under her chin. That made him stop.

"Why did you talk to me before?" she asked. "None of the other orphans ever have. Why did you?"

"I was curious if you were as bad as they all said." As soon as these words had left Eldrian's mouth, he questioned their sense.

"Well you know now."

You are, he filled in. Everything that Sire Mastro had said about her had been true. Eldrian took a step closer then sat down.

"I want to leave. I don't like it here anymore." She reached up and pushed some hair behind one of the earmuffs, then scratched the skin around it. "I told you about me. You never told me about you."

Eldrian blinked in the darkness. Her mention of escape had almost compelled him to try the same. But now a new direction. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you remember your parents?"

"Ah. My father, at least."

"Why not your mother?"

"I was too young. But she used to mix things in our kitchen. Ointments and poultices and potions. She liked to experiment too. One day something happened with her experiment and the house exploded into flames. I was outside with my father. He tried to stop it but it was too late." Eldrian told the story without a hint of mourning. The years, and his father's telling, had numbed him to it.

"What about your father?"

"He got a kind of sick that the healers couldn't mend. They couldn't even figure out what it was. Then it got so bad that I think they stopped trying. They just let him go." It felt like a hand had clenched around Eldrian's neck as he pressed on. "They called me in at the end, but he barely noticed me. He didn't say goodbye or anything. He said sorry to someone else. Someone called Anahid. He said he wanted to tell me something too, but he didn't in the end. Why would he wait so long to tell me?"

Eldrian wiped a hand across his face and it came away wet. Tears. And mucus. Why cry? He didn't feel sad, he felt angry... right?

If the girl held any concern, not much showed. She placed a hand on his knee but that was it.

"Who's Anahid?" she asked.

"I don't know. He— he wanted me to f-find him... or her " The hand clamped tighter still. Lower down, a second had begun to throttle his lungs of breath. The girl had to be doing this, he realized. Some spell. Why else would he cry over the person who put him in this mess. "But I'm stuck here now."

"Then we should both try to escape so we can find your father's friend."

"I don't care about that." Even through the smothering of tears, Eldrian found enough sense to shake his head. "Besides, the Empire is huge. He never even gave me a clue about where to look."

"So I'll help you. If I didn't have these earmuffs on I could send my voice further than anyone. Then all we would have to do is wait for someone to say this Anahid's name."

She had a strong voice, a fact everyone attested to. It could—

No, she's dangerous. "I'm not helping you escape. I thought you were happy here. Sire Mastro said you were."

"Not anymore," the girl muttered. "I want to see again and go walking outside the walls. I won't hurt anyone. I won't even use my magic. But they don't listen to me."

Eldrian held his tongue.

"Why do they want me here? Do you know? They kill murderers and Marisins alike elsewhere but they keep me locked up."

"Maybe they don't think they can kill you."

"They can. I can't do anything with these earmuffs on. There are so many spells tied up in here, Eldrian." She pointed to her head. "So many spells and it's been so long since I said one that I can only remember a few. But they're coming back. I think about doing something and suddenly there's a spell for it. But I can never say it or the earmuffs will make it wrong and people will get hurt."

So many spells.

"What about a spell to wake someone up?" Eldrian asked. His tears dried up in a flash of clarity.

"From what? A sleep, you mean—"

"A troubled sleep. Someone who hit their head and no shaking or yelling or anything else can wake them, not even healing spells."

The girl fell silent, her face still. "That boy. You fell and there was another boy with you who didn't move. He's still asleep."

"They've tried everything and he can't eat while he's like this. He's going to die."

Another pause. The girl's lips quivered a little every now and then as she thought. Then they parted for her to speak. "Yes. I have a spell for that."

"Then you can do it. You can go down there and save him."

She shook her head. "Only if they take off my earmuffs. And you know that they won't. Otherwise I might wake him up. Or I might push him deeper down. Or make it so that he can never sleep again, no matter how tired he gets. Or wake him so quickly that he gets hurt."

"Can't you be careful? Make the spell as soft as you can and put all your focus in it." But even as Eldrian asked this, he knew the answer. No. That wasn't not how sound magic worked. That wasn't what the earmuffs were for. If the girl couldn't hear what she was doing, she couldn't keep the magic in check. It might work. More likely it would make things worse. The same as she had done to that cook in the kitchen. She told him all of this as he thought it.

"You have to take off the earmuffs," said the girl.

"I can't."

"Then I can't help him." She stood up, turned around and disappeared into the darkness of her room beyond. The door clicked shut.

Eldrian stayed put for a few minutes. Her voice had left with her so he knew he had the time alone. There had to be another way. A compromise. Sire Mastro wouldn't let Yoled die, would he? Desperation would take hold and the jailers would see reason.

Of course.

===

"No," said Iyda and she slapped the dining hall table. Her bowl of vegetable stew sloshed a little, almost spilling the thin liquid over the edge.

"He's going to die if you don't."

"Then get someone else, ah? Or better yet, do it yourself."

"I can't," hissed Eldrian. "They'll know I've been talking to her."

"Uh huh, and you shouldn't be. Then this idiot idea wouldn't be swishing around up there in your big idiot head."

Eldrian recoiled and blinked as Iyda prodded him in the brow. "But we have to do something," he begged.

"So find someone else. I'm not asking the jailers to set the Marisin free, even if it is just for a little while. Even if it is to help someone. The second she has her earmuffs off, she'll say some word that will cook us all in our skins and you, shrimp, will be the first."

Another prod shot out but Eldrian slapped it away this time. "Then that's it. You're going to let Yoled die."

Iyda shrugged. "Better than all of us."

"What's better than all of us?"

Suddenly Dodeb dropped down at the table. He must have already finished since he didn't have a bowl.

"Nothing," Eldrian muttered. Why had he gone to Iyda? Maybe he secretly wanted to be talked out of it. More like insulted out of it.

"No, not nothing." Iyda leaned across and switched back to a whisper for the sprout. "Shrimp here wants to let the girl out so she can wake up Yoled."

"The girl? You mean the Marisin?" He looked at Eldrian, eyes wide. "You were talking to her, ah? That's why you were slow to come back from her dinner the other day. She's not going to wake up Yoled. Miss Belamy will, just wait. The Marisin will only make things worse."

"Stop calling her a Marisin," Eldrian snapped. He shut his mouth straight away. Fortunately the conversations of the dining hall were loud enough to drown him out. Those nearby lost interest quickly enough.

"She is one though, ah?"

"...Ah," Eldrian admitted after a few seconds.

"Then she's bad. Just bring her her food, that's all." With that, Dodeb stood up and wandered away to talk to some other boys from their dorm.

"You're not going to leave it alone, are you?" Iyda asked.

Eldrian shook his head.

The Earthborn girl picked up her bowl and moved away too.

Even if he had wanted to, it seemed the other orphans weren't going to let him. A cloud of murky thought saw Eldrian returning to the dorm later than most. All eyes were upon him the second he walked in. All but Dodeb who suddenly appeared to be entranced by one of the floor's bricks.

Bossman stepped forwards. "Word is you want to let the girl out and take her earmuffs off, ah?"

"So she can save Yoled," said Eldrian as he stood firm in the face of almost every boy in the dorm.

"Doesn't matter what the plan is. If it means setting her loose, it's crazy."

"So you don't care if Yoled dies either?"

Bossman shrugged. "He's been here shorter than most so I never knew him well enough to say. But it's not the first time some kid has gotten killed round here. Sometimes the jailers say that someone's graduated early when they really mean that someone had an accident. Apparently they throw you down the ravine when that happens. But everyone already knows about Yoled so they might bury him proper."

"Fine, I guess he dies." Eldrian tried to shove past Bossman but he didn't move.

"I didn't say we were going to stop you."

"What?"

"You want to try letting out the girl, do it. It's a stupid idea, ah, but I'm not about to rat out a shrimp to the jailers. Nobody would. And you don't seem the type to give up on making trouble just cause someone told you to."

"But she might kill everyone."

Bossman smiled. "It'll be you first. And in all the commotion, the rest of us'll have a chance to escape."

Eldrian frowned. "I thought you liked it here."

"We do," said Ajan. The boy sat still upon his bed, hood pulled further down than normal. "But there's tunnels under the manor. The jailers try to hide them but they can't. And they started cleaning them up last night."

"They must think the girl's about to go crazy on her own and there's nothing they can do to stop it," Bossman explained. "So I say go let her out to give the rest of us a distraction."

Only then did they let Eldrian past. His feet staggered on the stone floor. Tunnels under the manor. The jailers must want them a secret or he would have known about them earlier. A last ditch plan on their part, just as Bossman had theorized.

For once his bed felt something close to comfortable. Suitable considering how much else had just fallen out of place. The murmuring of children and their games kept Eldrian awake, distracted. When the night crept on enough for them to settle down an idea began to form. A plan. The girl needed her earmuffs off. They were locked and the key lay someplace unknown. But, with the jailers distracted, he could find it. And why not let her out beforehand?



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 13



The darkened hallways of the manor's underground felt familiar to Eldrian and he wondered if he had dreamed about them some time before. There were no lights down here. No torches or patches of magical luminescence. He navigating solely by the faintest glow he dared produce from his suncrests. Enough to see the stones by but not so much that his eyes might again grow comfortable with light. 

Leaving the dorm had been easy enough. The boys dropped into sleep one by one and after an hour he felt safe enough to make his move. The guards, jailers and other late sleepers of the manor were another problem. One he planned to cross as it came. But it didn't. The inky trek from the underground went by without encountering a single soul. He might have wondered if the whole world had vanished of people if a few creaks hadn't said otherwise when he emerged into the manor. 

Moonlight printed blades through the windows and onto the polished floorboards. A door clicked shut somewhere overhead. Eldrian took every step with agonizing slowness. Every pace involved rolling his cloth-wrapped feet from heel to blade to toe until finally the entire sole pressed into the floor. Not before probing for creaky boards, of course. 

A Vocal jailer wouldn't be fooled. Darkness didn't mask anything against someone who saw with sound. But Eldrian could only recall ever seeing a couple of Vocals around here. Vanet, the one who had put him in that stone box, and the other watching as children worked in the orchard. 

Be asleep, Eldrian wished to them and any others that might be scanning the night with their voices. Or distracted. 

Keeping up the silent steps began to prove painful. His ankle didn't help, still at a slight bend that didn't feel quite as strong as it had once been. Almost as though that leg had gotten shorter. 

Some of the rooms had their curtains drawn. These were where the journey became hardest. Countless pieces of furniture almost seemed to have materialized overnight. How long had he lived in the manor? Yet the layout of the rooms became a mystery in the dark. His arms swept back and forth, pawing senselessly at dark shapes that might have been a footstool or a fantasy. 

At last there came the bridge. He hugged the wall, pressing his weight against it and treading where the boards were silent. Even the moon and starlight failed to pierce the bottomless night of the ravine. A soft rushing came from below. 

A glow heralded the spiral stairway of the girl's tower. Its lights, it seemed, had not been darkened. Did she have a visitor? The thought almost brought Eldrian's heartbeats onto the cusp of hearing. 

The first steps were easy, even as they brought him to the second floor. He peeked out onto the landing but lurched back immediately, stomach flipping over. A jailer in the hall beyond. Not a Vocal, at least, for she carried a dim lantern. But her back hadn't been turned. 

The seconds seemed to tick by as though they were minutes or more. Had she seen him? Had the light reached that far? 

No footsteps yet. 

The lantern must have blinded her to the distance. Too bright to see past its light but not enough to properly reveal the archway behind which Eldrian hid. 

With a deep breath, he peered around the corner. 

There she stood, lantern hanging low at her side. Eyes fixed on the archway. Eyes... closed? 

Yes, they were. At last Eldrian saw the way she had become cradled where the passage met a corner and continued to the left. Asleep on duty. 

Eldrian shuddered and breathed. His heart still skittered but he couldn't linger. 

The rest of the tower proved simple. Nobody on the third floor and then he only needed to make the last few rounds of the stairway before reaching the doors. He fumbled through his pockets for the key. 

The girl's tower. He had never seen it after sundown. The dark stretched out as deep and as infinite as the manor's underground had been. Eldrian lit his suncrests enough to see by and proceeded across the room. 

The door to the girl's quarters was closed. He hadn't thought of this. But what sense would there be in allowing the luxury of a door that locks? Sure enough, the handle turned. 

A shape on the bed, covered in blankets. Another deep breath and another problem that he hadn't considered. Rousing the girl from sleep would mean shaking her awake. 

It's okay, Eldrian told himself. She's in control. She likes me. 

He tiptoed towards her bed, still afraid that someone on the floors below might hear somehow. 

Black hair lay curtained upon the girl's pillow and inky occumarks stared blindly up at him. Apart from her being horizontal, she looked hardly different than when awake. 

Eldrian's hand slid forwards, aimed at her shoulder. He gave her the faintest prod he could imagine. Nothing. A harder one that brought the same. Then he grabbed her arm and shook a little. 

The girl jolted and lurched backwards beneath the covers. 

A scream filled Eldrian's ears. It seemed to originate from inside him. Then it died as fast as it had risen. 

"Don't do that!" The girl hissed. 

"I'm letting you out," said Eldrian. For wont of anything better to say, he cut straight to the point. 

A second passed before the girl replied. "You're what? Why?" 

"Yoled needs you." 

"I told you, I can't unless—" 

"I know. Stand up, let me try to unlock them." 

"With what?" asked the girl as she slid out from the blankets and adjusted her night robe. 

"My magic." Eldrian raised his hands but she grabbed them. 

"No. These won't let you." She turned her head left and right to show off the runes on each ear that glowed a soft blue. 

"Then we'll try something else." Eldrian took the girl's hand and pulled. 

"Where are we going?" she whispered. 

"To find the key." 

=== 

The going had been slow before but it felt relentless compared to their new pace. The girl could barely see with her earmuffs on so leading her downstairs and through the hallways, without making a sound, took eons. It didn't help that she couldn't hear her own steps. Eldrian flinched every time her foot found a board that creaked and she pressed down regardless. 

"Just step where I do," Eldrian begged. 

She shrugged. Speech, they had found, was too risky when she couldn't always get the volume right. 

Their first guess, Sire Mastro's study. One of the drawers, perhaps. Eldrian had never seen the key but the lock on the back of the girl's earmuffs looked tiny so he guessed their target would be too. And it had to be somewhere obvious in case the jailers needed it in a hurry. 

The door that had become both familiar and ominous over the weeks stood locked in the gloom before them. Another hurdle, but not a difficult one. 

Eldrian pressed his hand over the keyhole. A magical force snaked out from his suncrest as the levitation spell crept through to the other side of the door. He felt around with the mental limb and gripped the handle on the inside of the study before giving it a turn. He breathed a sigh of relief when the lock clicked its acceptance. 

Dark and lifeless. Not that the study had ever really felt hospitable. Everything had to be still but the way the tiny glow from Eldrian's palms fell over everything made it seem as though they shifted at the corners of his vision. Books, trophies, knickknacks and other curiosities crawled over their shelves as he scanned the room. 

"Can you see it?" Eldrian asked after nudging the girl's shoulder for her attention. 

A headshake no. 

"Try his desk." 

Nod. 

While the girl searched with sound, Eldrian ventured to do the same with his eyes. He walked around the desk and started on the cabinet behind. 

The shelves inside mostly held piles of paper and rolls of parchment but one small section had three leather-bound journals. They stood so neatly among the clutter that he found his focus drawn to them immediately. The faint glow from his palms barely lit the titles on their spines. He didn't dare make more light or a haphazard glance down the hallway might catch a glow under the study's door. 

Eldrian's lips moved as he squinted out the title of the first journal, so thin compared to the other two. Then he froze. 

A hand fell on his shoulder and he whipped round to see the girl holding up a tiny, gold key. Then she pointed at the books and cocked her head. 

"What? Oh, they're nothing. 

Headshake and an insistent jab. 

"Just... money things," he lied. "Numbers and figures. It's boring" 

Eldrian took the key from her fingers, eager for this line of discussion to end. 

With a shrug the girl turned around, baring the back of her earmuffs. 

He looked at the key, back to her. "Not yet. Once we're downstairs." 

"You can trust me," she sighed, a little too loud 

"I know. But if someone catches us now, there'll be even worse trouble. At least this way we could hide the key for later." 

She shrugged again then started towards the door. 

Eldrian closed the cabinet when her voice had moved on. 

The journey downstairs went faster, much to the pain of Eldrian's nerves. The girl walked quickly, almost carelessly. More than once Eldrian found himself having to jerk her out of the way of the leg of a table or from crashing into the edge of a wall. 

This is a bad idea. 

It isn't, Eldrian replied. Take off the earmuffs, say the spell, put them back on. 

This is a bad idea. 

Yoled will die otherwise. 

And everyone else? 

Eldrian clenched his teeth. 

"You're sure this will work?" He asked when the passage to the infirmary loomed into sight. There weren't any offshoots or rooms around here. Nobody to overhear them, even if the girl got a bit loud. 

"Ah... but he might make some noise so be ready." 

"What kind of noise? You mean he might scream?" 

"Well, he's going to wake up quickly. Like that." She snapped her fingers. The soft crack seemed deafening in the silence of night. "And he's been asleep for a while, ah? He might not be expecting it. Just be ready." 

The girl paused over Yoled's bed, watching him. The flit lay motionless in the moonlight except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. She touched his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. Then a violent one that disturbed the covers. 

"Don't!" Eldrian hissed. 

"I have to be sure. The spell is only for people who are asleep because of head illness. It might do something else otherwise." She sat on the floor next to Yoled and started prodding him in the ribs. "Healing with sound magic is more temperamental than anything else a Vocal can do... how do I know that?" She looked up at him. 

Eldrian couldn't think of a reply. Instead he fished out the tiny key. "We should hurry up." 

"Ah, go ahead." The girl bent her head over the mattress, exposing a lock built in to the base of her earmuffs. 

It's for Yoled. Eldrian told himself. He grabbed the steel band that ran atop the girl's head and pressed the key until it fitted snug in the lock. He's going to die otherwise. I can't let him die. 

The lock didn't click but the band lifted a fraction when he turned the key. He withdrew it as the girl's hands crept up and began to pull apart the frame that bound her in a prison of silence. 

He suddenly recalled a creature that lived back home. A hatching snake. Over winter, to avoid the cold, they would spin themselves a pod in the branches of a tree, then hatch and uncoil when the weather got warm enough. Why did the girl freeing herself remind him of that? 

"I can see," she sighed, her voice of vision fading from his ears. "I can see everything. Dawn, it's been years since I could see so much at once." 

"What about Yoled?" Eldrian asked, aware that he had taken a half step back. 

"Of course. Just... let me look around. Is that really my voice? It's so different now. Different to how I remember... sharper." She took another breath as if tasting some new reality. Then she looked up at Eldrian and smiled, her occumarks as dark as ever in the moonlight. "Right... Yoled. Stand back." 

Eldrian shuffled several steps further but not so many as to put the girl out of reach. 

She stood up and looked at the boy. "It's been a while since I did any magic. Maybe I should try something smaller first." 

The girl turned around and Eldrian's heart leapt into his throat. But she wasn't focused on him. She looked past at one of the candles by the other beds. 

The girl frowned. Then, with a tiny raise of her hand, she said "Rin." 

Suddenly the room flooded with the warmth of candlelight as all but the most burnt-down stubs flared into life. 

"Nir," she whispered, her hand lowering again, and room fell into darkness. Wisps of smoke trailed towards the ceiling. 

Eldrian struggled not to stare. Not at the feat of magic, for he had seen plenty and heard of more. Rather, the effortlessness of it astounded him. More so considering how long she must have been without the slightest hint of practice. 

"More," said the girl. "Vana." 

She lifted her hand and the beds, save Yoled's, began to stir. Some started to float high while others only came a few inches off the ground. Then each slid along to swap places with its neighbor before lowering back down to rest. 

"Okay, that's enough," said Eldrian, trying to sound firm. It took everything to keep his voice from trembling. They hadn't been exaggerating her abilities. 

The girl doesn't want to escape. If she did, no force in this world could stop her. 

"Right, of course." The girl turned back to Yoled. "Remember what I said?" 

It took a moment before Eldrian did. He stepped closer, around the other side of the bed, and prepared himself to hold the boy down. 

The girl placed her hands on Yoled's head. One by his crown, the other on his brow. "Ah, here I go... Ara lart." 

"Guhhh," Yoled wheezed as his eyes shot open. The bed creaked as his entire body spasmed, clenching and unclenching a second later. 

"Yoled, hush!" Eldrian hissed as he tried to hold the boy down. "You're okay, be quiet." 

The flit, finally awake, panted for breath, his neck craning this way and that as he tried to orient himself. "Wha, wadada, hava," he blabbered. 

"What's wrong with him?" Eldrian pinned the boy down by the shoulders. 

"Nothing, he's just been asleep a while, ah? Give him time." 

At that point Yoled seemed to notice the other person present. His eyes shot to the girl, then went wide with fear and his struggles redoubled. 

"No, it's okay. She helped you. She helped you," said Eldrian. 

"Bral," the girl intoned. 

Yoled went still. He froze up so completely that only his eyes continued to move in terrified jabs from one corner to the other. 

"He was making too much noise," said the girl. 

"Undo it," Eldrian demanded. 

"No, explain to him first." 

He did, but not before giving the girl a wary look. He told Yoled about them falling and getting trapped in the girl's tower. How he broke his leg and how Yoled hit his head so badly that he went to sleep and nobody could wake him up. After that point there wasn't much to tell past the plan that brought them here. 

"Now undo it," said Eldrian when he had finished and when Yoled's eyes had stopped jittering so wildly. 

"As long as he doesn't make too much noise," the girl replied. "Larb." 

Yoled shuddered but relaxed rather than flailing about again. He turned his head to Eldrian. "You're crazy. You're going to be in so much trouble. They'll lock you in punishment for the rest of your life." 

"Only if they find out," said the girl. 

"And they won't because we're going back to the tower now." Eldrian looked her in the occumarks. 

"Right... let's go." 

Eldrian pulled his friends blankets back into place. "Stay here, you still need to rest." When he looked up again, the girl had already reached the hallway. She moved so much faster with her earmuffs off. 

"Hey, wait!" Eldrian hissed as he gathered up the bits of steel and checked his pocket for the key. 

The girl didn't slow down. 

"You're forgetting this." 

"What? Oh, of course." They were round a corner in the hallway now, near the stairs to the second floor. "Back inside." 

"You said you would." 

"I know... do you think they will ever let me go?" 

"If you're good." He moved behind her with the steel frame in his hands. Only then did he realize that he didn't know how to reassemble everything. 

As if guessing at his thoughts, the girl's hands came up to guide him. They stopped again before he had even started. 

"You lied to me before. Those books were important." 

"What books?" He knew the ones. 

"In Sire Mastro's study. Why didn't you want me to look at them? What did they say?" 

"Nothing. We have to get you back upstairs. Come on, before someone finds us." Desperation had begun to creep into his voice. 

"First we look at those books." 

She stepped away and Eldrian did nothing to stop her. She had already shown her abilities. 

This was a bad idea. 

With no other options, Eldrian followed her back across the bridge.



The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 14



Chapter Fourteen

"We needed to keep these tunnels maintained, Sire. Last winter's melt has put far more water through here than usual. Some of the beams further along look as though they should have collapsed weeks ago. They're more rot than wood."

 "The men will shore them up swiftly enough. Remember, we only need the tunnels once. A little water won't hurt us."

 "It's not the water I fear. If the girl does do anything on the surface, the repercussions might be severe enough for us to feel them down here. I don't trust the roof to shift only a little."

"Then I suppose we were right not to put this off a moment—"

"Sire! Sire Mastro... trouble in the manor."

"Slow down Sprig. Running in the dark, you'll slip and crack your skull."

"Sorry Sire. Alarm in the manor. That orphan, Yoled. He's been awoken."

"Aha, at last. And the alarm?"

"That's just it, Sire. He says it's the Marisin that woke him up. She's been freed."

===

They had locked the study in case anyone came along. Eldrian expected he would need to undo the tumblers again but the girl breathed a word as she approached and the door swung open on its own.

"Inside. Hurry," she commanded as she led the way.

The girl moved to one side of the desk and pointed Eldrian around the other. 

"Open it." She nodded to the cabinet.

"Please don't," Eldrian begged. Nothing good would come from her knowing the contents of the books. Still, he obeyed as he set aside the pieces of her earmuffs.

"Get the first one."

Eldrian took the thinnest volume from its shelf. Again he read the title on its spine and again he cringed at what her reaction would no doubt be.

"Don't read this," he warned.

"I can't read. You will. And don't think about lying - Ibdro - because this won't let you." With the girl's spell word, a ball of soft blue light appeared in the air, hovering by her head.

Eldrian stared at the ball for a moment before an idea flashed into his head. "Please don't make me read this," he said. "You won't like what it says."

Whatever reaction the ball of light was supposed to make, didn't happen.

"See?" he said. "Nothing. I'm telling the truth."

The girl pursed her lips. "Maybe I don't care. Start reading. Start with the title."

Eldrian gritted his teeth and flipped the book to its cover. So thin. Hardly any point in making it a book in the first place. "Instructions for the girl," he read.

Silence. The truth-seeing spell dipped and swayed a little.

"Instructions?" asked the girl.

"That's what it says."

She pulled out the chair that Sire Mastro kept for guests and sat down. "Keep reading."

The grim suspicion about what they would find out already weighed on Eldrian's mind. He turned to the first page. Long, elegant strokes ran across the yellowed paper.

17th Ash, 581

Mastro Quenzin,

As promised, she will be arriving this spring. A detail will accompany her to help with initial integration to your manor but I hope that she will find herself at home within the first few weeks. She is a good child, despite everything that has happened. We're fortunate in that her time away hasn't been too detrimental and we've made certain that she won't remember the details of it. You've a blank canvas on which to begin.

Of course, this is not to say that we grant you permission to run free with her upbringing. My purpose of writing to you here is to set the boundaries. Let her roam the manor. Treat her as you would a daughter. Be there for her when the time demands.

I know that you have already been made aware of her prowess at magic but I'm afraid I must reiterate. She is a prodigy. Even the most promising of Vocals before are like pawns beneath her. But she is still a child. Do not, do not, encourage her magic. She lacks control, tone, understanding. She could injure the folk of your manor or worse, herself. Keep her safe until she is ready. When she is, we will return to collect her.

I'll have the caretakers draw up a more detailed record of her. Favourite foods, games, what she likes, what she fears and so on. Be in touch should anything critical develop but only then. It's best we keep communication to the necessities. But ensure to monitor her well. A record of some sorts for us to review.

That's all I need say for now. Take good care of her. I've come to love her like my own child, as I'm sure you will too. Farewell my little—

Eldrian choked on his words as his hands started to shake.

It took a few moments before the girl realized that the reading had stopped. "What's wrong? Keep going," she said.

"I know your name," Eldrian replied.

The girl shot to her feet. "Tell me."

"It's... it's Anahid. And it says your family's name is Garall."

"I'm... Anahid?" The girl tasted her name. "Anahid Garall. Your father wanted you to find me?"

"That's not it," said Eldrian. It didn't make sense. There'd never been a single hint before this. No mention from his father, no memories. "Garall is my family's name too."

"But that would make me..."

"No, he wouldn't hide something like that. Why would he hide that? It doesn't— how could he do that to me? Did he plan all this?"

"And why would he send me away?" asked the girl, Anahid.

Eldrian glared at her. "He didn't. He's my father not yours. You're not my sister, this is all just... just some big coincidence."

"But he sent you here, ah? And he said for you to find me as his final wish."

"Shut up!" Eldrian shouted. He could hardly recall an instance where his father had ever lied to him. Now this?

"Don't be so loud," hissed Anahid. 

She reached for his arm but Eldrian jerked it away before shoving her backwards. His heart raced and his head throbbed. At some point the room had started swirling around. Some spell from the girl, no doubt. "Don't touch me!"

"Hoy, it's not just about you, ah? What about me? He tried to get rid of me. They kept me locked away for years. And what about the other things in that letter? Why does someone want to 'collect' me?"

"Because you're a Marisin!" Eldrian hurled the the book at her. 

Pages fluttered in the air, some pulling free of their bindings. The book flew past Anahid where it clattered against a burned-down candle and both fell to the floor.

A mistake, he realized immediately. Provoking someone so powerful. But Anahid didn't retaliate. Didn't lash out as he had done. She turned on her heel and walked out the door.

In a rush Eldrian tore the first page from the now-battered book and ran after her. A dark shape bobbed down the hallway, moving towards the spiral staircase of the girl's tower.

"Wait," Eldrian hissed as he pursued. "I didn't mean—"

"I thought you wanted to be my friend," said Anahid as she whirled around on him. "Now I understand, you just wanted me to wake up Yoled then go back in my cage."

"That isn't it. But if you don't, Sire Mastro will know and things will only get worse."

Anahid pointed to the floor at an angle as though she meant to direct his attention to something elsewhere in the manor. "Too late. They already know that you freed me. I can see everything now. They're scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off. Some are waking up the orphans so they can escape through the tunnels. They're scared. They think I'm going to hurt them. And so do you, I suppose." Anahid turned again and kept walking. When she reached the spiral stairs she went down rather than up.

Eldrian snapped from his trance and caught up with her. "But you're not going to hurt them, ah?"

"You don't trust me. I was starting to think that you might. I'm not going to hurt them. I just want to talk to Sire Mastro."

Something in the way she spoke, or maybe a new degree of common sense, betrayed her lies to Eldrian.

Anahid plowed on as she came to the bottom of the stairs. Down the hall then right towards the bridge and the front of the manor.

"Sire Mastro wants to save me for someone. I just want to know who and why. Is that so wrong?" Anahid asked herself out loud.

They took another turn into the hall that held most of the girls' dorms. The doors all stood open and not a soul in sight. Bedclothes were tossed aside and chests lay open from the hasty dressing of the owners. The manor had gone still and silent. At least until a figure stepped out from one of the rooms in front of them. A bright light filled Eldrian's eyes as a Solar shone their suncrests.

"I had hoped better of you," came a voice. "I thought you might have finally accepted your lot, Eldrian. But then you do something like this. Endangering the lives of so many just to see yourself free."

The light shifted to Eldrian as he recognized its owner's voice. Miss Belamy.

"Leave us alone," Anahid growled.

"Sire Mastro needs you back in the tower. Now, will you go kindly or do I need to be rough?"

"I want to speak to Sire Mastro," said Anahid, her voice unwavering.

The light faded just enough that Eldrian could see the child wrangler's face. She sounded braver than she looked.

"Rough it is," she said.

A spear of purple light howled down the hallway from Miss Belamy's outstretched palm, pointed straight towards Anahid. But the girl barely flinched. She said something under her breath and the spear exploded in midair.

"Leave me alone," Anahid intoned. "I'm not fighting you."

"Then return to your room. I won't let you hurt another."

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"But what you want and what takes place have always been two separate things. Now go back to your room!"

Another spear shot forwards. Again Anahid deflected it without effort.

"No," she whispered, barely audible beneath the screech of another spear. She brushed the attack aside as she had with the others. Then she made a flick of her hand and whispered something else.

The space where Miss Belamy had been suddenly held nothing but air. A fraction of a second later, a mighty crash echoed from the dorm on the left. Silence afterwards, no screams.

As though nothing had happened Anahid resumed her march.

Eldrian reached the door from which the noise had come and peered inside. In the gloom he could just make out the ruins of a bed and a mix of cloth amid them. They didn't all look like blankets. He didn't light the room with his spells or it might make things clearer.

"What did you do?" Eldrian asked, his mouth agape.

"I got rid of her. She's unconcious, that's all." Anahid kept walking. If she looked in the dorm too, she made no indication.

"You're lying," Eldrian mumbled to himself. But he didn't stay to check.

Down another stairway and towards the center of the manor. They passed one of the passages that went to the cellar, instead traveling to the entry hall.

"Aren't the tunnels underground?" Eldrian asked.

"He isn't going through the tunnels." 

With a flick of Anahid's hand, the great doors to the manor swung in on their hinges and crashed against their stops. She strode out into the night, head turned towards the stables as Eldrian ran to keep up. Another movement of the hand and another whispered spell. Wooden boards and beams groaned, splintered and snapped. The front of the stables came crashing down.

"Sire Mastro!" Anahid shouted into the dark. She pointed to the sky where a coil of sound traveled before balling and lighting up like the sun.

Dozens of terrified faces stared up at her from the stone drive of the manor. Orphans waiting for the gates to be opened. The tunnels must not have been wide enough to fit them all.

Eldrian looked down at the wide-eyed children. He could just make out Iyda and Yoled among them, huddled together. He wanted to say something that would set their fears aside but neither were paying him any mind.

"Sire Mastro!" Anahid called again. 

Several jailers had already emerged from the stables, some armed with crossbows and others with magic. Skytouched guards swept in from the side and landed on the walls.

"You called me, child?" Sire Mastro stepped out from the ruined front of the stables. No fear filled his eyes. More than could be said for his jailers.

"Tell... me... everything," 

Sire Mastro shifted his gaze to Eldrian. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes," said Anahid. With a whispered breath, a blue ball of light appeared. "And don't lie."

"I was not asking you."

Eldrian stammered over the question. More evidence that he fit into this deeper than he knew. Not only that, but that Sire Mastro had known this, maybe even from the beginning. Yet, as always, curiosity managed to overwhelm sense. "Tell us."

"Very well. It began the day two children were born. Twins. The boy, a Solar like his father, and unremarkable. The girl who shared her mother's Vocal blood, however, was anything but. Even early in her life, the parents knew that they had something incredible. Unfortunate that they didn't realize the extent." Sire Mastro stopped for a moment, then looked at Eldrian again. "Do you recall how your mother died?"

No, he groaned inside. He knew. At least, he thought he did. "A mixture gone wrong," he ventured.

"So I understand you were told. So I understand your home village believes. But it was her." He looked at Anahid. "Something happened that morning in the kitchen as you and your father stayed outside, blissfully unaware. I do not, nor do any, know the exact details. Perhaps something scared your sister or she tried to shield herself from harm. Either way, she lashed out at it. But she protected herself too. Your father, as I understand, found her beneath a bubble of sound so impenetrable he had to wait until she undid it on her own. But your mother had not been included."

"You're lying," said Eldrian, though he knew himself to be wrong. Not once had Anahid's spell detected anything. "How could you know all this?"

"It's a story that has been peiced together from many sources, your father included, by many people, then passed to me. And before you ask whom by, I cannot tell you as I do not know."

The light stayed its faint blue.

"Then, child, you were brought here," Sire Mastro continued, looking at her. "And we were tasked to look after you. But when it became clear that you could not be trusted to keep your magic in check, a solution had to be found. None of us could guess the side affects it would have, your magic virtually disappearing and you entering some realm that flickered between sleep and wakefulness. And what good is a Vocal of such potential if she can no longer use her magic? So another plan was formed. Which is where you came in, Eldrian. Of course, we had to wait until your father took a turn for the poorer. When he did, we arranged to have you brought to us so that you could help your sister out of her trance."

"But... I didn't do anything..." Eldrian mumbled.

"Maybe you didn't realize." Again Sire Mastro turned to Anahid. "Child, you started to improve around the time your brother arrived. I don't understand it either. In truth, I had planned something less simple. It seems Dawn was kind to me. And you, Eldrian, I'd hazard you've felt drawn to your sister since coming here, even if you didn't understand it, correct?"

Eldrian opened his mouth to protest but closed it again immediately. Even before he had started bringing Anahid her meals, there had been that dream. Were there others too? Somewhere deep in his mind, so far down it could have been imagined, he thought so. But then a darker possibility took over and the confusion choked out beneath a cloud of red. "What if my father hadn't gotten sick."

"We would have found another method," said Sire Mastro in his calm-as-ever way.

"You mean you would have made him sick?"

"I did not say that."

Eldrian took a deep breath. "Did you do something to him?"

Sire Mastro met his eyes. "No." The ball of light stayed blue. "But that isn't to say that nothing was done. Either way, I do not know."

This time Anahid's light turned yellow. Eldrian stared at it before the meaning clicked. "Liar!" he shouted.

"No, that's—"

But he shook his sister off as he raised a hand and pointed it at Sire Mastro. Eldrian had never wanted to learn spells for hurting. But fire could still be used for such. And as a jet of it scorched from the suncrests in his palms, hurting was the only thing on Eldrian's mind.

And pain is what the fire brought, though not to Sire Mastro as the flames fell short. A slickened thunk sounded in Eldrian's ears, followed by a needling in his shoulder. He looked down, blinked twice. A stick had started growing from him. Another thunk and another stick, this one in his stomach.

"Whuh?" he mumbled before collapsing.

===

All too much. All these changes in her life and every second of them saw more magic pouring forth from the recesses of her mind, begging to be spoken. So many spells buried and forgotten, only to be remembered now.

Wait, something else. What had her brother just said?

Anahid's voice swept to where the boy had been standing and found empty space. No, not quite. He lay there instead, a pair of crossbow bolts sticking from his body. His chest rose and fell in spasms.

Anahid sank down by her brother's side. "Eldrian, get up," she said.

Save the quivers, he didn't move.

"Come on. Come on, you're okay. Look, uh... oh, havesta, zarr."

The bolts shuddered and turned to ash before blowing out of the wounds and into the night. Then the bloodied holes closed up.

"See? All better. Now get up, we have to go."

The boy clenched, relaxed, and went limp.

"Eldrian, come on. I fixed you, you can stop pretending. You're the only one who ever talked to me so you can't leave me alone. You can't. You can't, don't, please don't." Anahid stood up and whirled around on the crowd. "Who did that?!" she shouted.

Whatever fear the orphans and jailers felt before had become a comforting memory. Even the master of the Manor had begun to sweat.

Up on the walls she found two men who were frantically reloading their crossbows. She plucked them both from their perch and drew them in, as they flailed and screamed, until their noses rested a foot from hers.

"That was a mistake." 

"Anahid don't!" cried Sire Mastro.

"Anahid?!" She plucked him up too. "Anahid?! What happened to child? Marisin? A monster in a cage. Well now I'm free. So what does that make me?"

The sun of sound that she had created began to tremble and boil as though sensing her fury. Let it.

"What does that make me?" she asked again.

A Kelad, came a voice.

"Who said that?!" 

Anahid turned her head over the crowd. Those that weren't already burying their heads in their hands flinched beneath her eyeless glare. None owned up. She looked down at Eldrian, still as before.

The answer came from inside. A memory or a dream, she didn't know. But there he was, her brother.

Don't do it, he said. The crossbow wounds were trickling with his blood. No, she healed them already.

"It's what they want."

Don't do it.

"They think I'm a monster."

Don't. Do. It.

"It's all they want me to do. They took me away to make me one, ah? Why shouldn't they have it."

Why do you want them to have it? Why do you want them to succeed?

Anahid paused. Looked at the crumpled body of her brother. The ghost of him in her head where his wounds were only getting worse.

Prove them wrong. Prove they were always wrong.

She clenched her hands into fists until it hurt. Gritted her teeth till they screeched against one another. 

You can leave here now. Leave them in their fear and dirt while you live free. 

"They made me suffer."

So will they. Let them see how far you've risen and how far you will rise. Let them see how they've become nothing to you. How all the pain and misery, the imprisonment, have washed off of you without a trace. You are beyond their touch.




The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 14



She breathed and the air trembled down her throat. She only felt rage but it had lost its appeal. Anahid set her captives down. When she spoke, her words came tense, for she didn't quite trust that they were her own.

"I forgive you." She pointed to her brother and he floated up to be by her side, cradled safely in her magic. "Now get out of my way."

Like a river changing its course, the crowd parted to the gate. Nobody stopped her. Nobody spoke a word.

As she took the first steps outside the manor's walls, the first in who knows how long, her feet faltered. She saw it at last. The world. A rolling bed of land before her. Countless journeys and destinations. But all she really wanted was to be as far from this place as possible. She went east.

===

Epilogue

Never before had she tasted an apple so sour, nor one so small. It mustn't have been ripe. But hunger drove this action so she hardly cared.

She'd walked all night to reach this stretch of woods. Anahid with her brother floating behind. Perhaps they could have stopped earlier but the dark didn't bother her and she needed to get away from that prison.

A river. They were by a river. The same one, she thought, that flowed under the manor. Although... that one went west to north. Perhaps this was different. Either way, the details didn't matter. She could hear the water! Not simply see the silent flow from half a mile away. She shuddered with delight.

"Mrm," Eldrian whimpered as he stirred. His first movement.

Anahid placed a hand on her brother's shoulder and a shook him gently. "Time to get up now."

"What's... wrong... with my bed," Eldrian sighed, his eyes still closed.

"You aren't in it. You're on the ground. We're outside."

The boy rolled over. One arm stretched out to run his hand through the sparse, woodland grass. Then his eyes fluttered to a squint in the morning light. "I'm having a dream."

"No."

"Then what?"

"We ran away. We escaped together."

Eldrian sat up and blinked a few times. He looked at her as though he didn't quite believe his vision. "I got shot," he said after a few seconds.

"Ah, and I healed you. But then you wouldn't move."

"Because it hurt. You healing me hurt even more than being shot."

Anahid shrugged. "You would have died." She crunched down on the final bit of apple, then threw the core away where it tumbled a few reaches before stopping by a nest of ants.

For a while they sat without talking, listening to the drone of the river. It felt so strange to see and hear it at the same time. Stranger still, the sensation of the earmuffs being gone. The lack of their weight, their pressing, clamping burden. But a new weight had surfaced in their place. All the forgotten spells and their power. Saying any of them could be such a risk. And they were begging her to be said.

"Just so you know, the ball turns red when people lie, not yellow. Yellow is when they haven't told the whole truth."

Eldrian mumbled some degree of understanding. 

"What do we do now?" Anahid asked. Her focus shifted to the distant boundaries that her voice now reached. So many things were moving through the woods. A bear lumbering along, his nose twitching at the ground as he followed the scent of a fairy parg up ahead. Over to the west she could see a tiny hut, almost buried in the forest. A man labored out front, chopping logs into firewood. She wanted to meet him.

"I doh' know," Eldrian said. A second later he started patting his shirt. Tucked away somewhere, he pulled out a scrap of paper. "I still have this?"

"What is it?"

"That letter from before. The one to Sire Mastro, ah? Except I didn't see who it was from."

Anahid jolted to attention. "Read it."

Eldrian looked at the paper. "There's nothing. Farewell my little Anahid Garall. Then it's signed 'J'. And that's it."

"Who's J?"

Eldrian's turn to shrug.

"Then I guess we have to find them." Anahid stood up and brushed the dirt from her night gown. She needed something better but all her belongings, Eldrian's too, were back at Children of Light. There they could stay.

"We don't even have their full name." Despite his protest Eldrian stood too. He followed his sister away from the river. "We could go back to Sire Mastro if he didn't tell the whole truth."

"Nah, we're not going back there. We can look everywhere else."

"That's a lot of ground." Eldrian watched his sister as he followed. Branches and foliage seemed to bend away, before they reached them, then slide back into place behind. Her doing, no doubt.

"Ah, but now there's two of us looking."

So they walked.

===

Afterword

So ends my latest story. I would like to start by saying that if you enjoyed this, you may enjoy anything else I've uploaded to the non-erotic category as it's all set in the same universe.

Thankyou to those who read this and a bigger thankyou to those who commented. Although I don't reply, I read every single one and immensly appreciate the feedback given. If you have the time and the will, I would love to hear everyone's closing thoughts.