Songs for the Sacred and the Soulless (Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten Book 2)

by Kameron Williams

  She was just outside the butcher’s shop, and she wondered who would be inside. A fellow Condor from the Clouds, or a resident of Snowstone that Anza had let keep their job in an attempt to continue castle life order, to reform them from base cliff folk to Snowstone royals. She thought about Gargo the ram keeper again, how there was no place for him in their new realm. She wondered if there was a place for her, either.

  Yari looked into Ivy’s eyes, globes of amber with black ovals in the center. She had looked into those eyes since Ivy barely had horns. Now those horns were long and grown, curled over his ears and poking out on each side of his snout, a crown of maturity. She ran a hand across a horn, and Ivy nuzzled it against her until the ridges bristled against her palm like chiseled bone. It was how he showed affection, like a hug for humans, or even a kiss, perhaps.

  “I won’t do it.” Yari didn’t realize she had made that decision until she heard herself speak the words. “Nor will I hide you from Anza. That isn’t me.”

  Yari squeezed her grip around the curl of horn and swung herself onto the ram’s back. She headed out the lower gate to the road to Sirith, not knowing what she was doing or where she was going, only that she needed to get away. She rode south past Sirith into the woods until she passed Red Valley to the west. When she’d almost reached Vlysa, she curved west to stay in the woods, just under the hills that bordered the south side of the valley.

  There was something about the woods that was therapeutic. Cliffs she was used to, and wide- open spaces made her suspicious—but the woods—the woods were calming and serene. There was something honest about them, something true. It was its own world with its own sights, sounds and textures: the forest breeze, sweet and soft like a whisper, boulders and stones, plants and trees and the creatures that played in their leaves, their whistles and calls sounding like a ballad in the otherwise quiet air.

  But the air wasn’t quiet now. There were voices, footsteps, all too many, and all at once.

  Yari slid off Ivy without a sound and crept toward the activity. The ram stayed behind where Yari left him, and the archer notched an arrow in her bowstring. There were camels in the wood, camels all over! They were armored, and she could see the men who owned them, some mounted, others leading them by the reigns. Cyanans! An army of Cyanans!

  Yari didn’t know exactly why they were there. What she did know was that it was too much of a coincidence for them to be so close to Snowstone Castle. They mean to take it.

  Yari had a choice. She could disappear and leave this new Anza who she hardly knew to her fate, or she could ride back at once and warn her queen.

  Anza came in with a smile, knowing and sharp, and Zar would’ve had no problem admitting to anyone that he was afraid.

  “The guard tells me he suddenly fell asleep,” she said. “Very suddenly.”

  The guard filed in behind her, looking confused or ashamed, or some awkward mix of the two.

  Anza took a step closer to the gate and peered in at Lyla. She wore a pointed look, half squinting, a sort of glare on her eyes, plump lips pulled to a smile. By the time Zar realized she had a book in her hands, the woman was already reading from it.

  “Charmers are a curiosity of the old world,” she read. The book was bigger than any Zar had ever seen. It was dustier than a dried-up cleaning rag, and it was so old it looked like it might disintegrate in the woman’s hands. Anza looked Lyla dead in the eyes, then kept reading.

  “They can persuade a person through music, be it the tune of an instrument or the words of a song or, commonly and most effectively, a combination of both. Common charms include enticing a person to infatuation—” The lady stopped, locking eyes with Lyla and holding the gaze as she finished. “Or putting a person to sleep.” Anza closed the tome. “Forgotten Gifts, it’s called. A very old book about very old arts. Open the gate.” The guard behind her shuffled forward with the keys. “I already owe Zar here a debt. It appears, now, I owe you, too, girl.”

  Zar looked at the queen. Her eyes were fixed on Lyla, cheeks, high and smooth, raised above a smile. The guard fiddled with the lock, and the door creaked open a moment later.

  Anza walked in the cell, ignoring Zar, but walking right up to Lyla and commanding her to stand. Lyla stood, and Anza gazed at her like she was the greatest wonder of the world, running a hand across her cheek, almost affectionately. She grabbed Lyla by the chin, caressing the girl’s mouth with her thumb, then traced around the curve of her lips with her fingers. Anza pushed her fingers in and Lyla’s mouth opened to make room for them. Then Lyla made a gagging sound and Anza jerked her arm and tightened it. She had hold of the girl’s tongue, and a second later she held a dagger an inch from her eye.

  “Bite me and I’ll take an eye,” Anza said.

  Lyla squirmed and moaned as Anza pulled at her tongue, and as the Queen brought her dagger to it, Zar saw something frightening in Anza’s eyes. He hadn’t seen it on her before. It was something like hatred, vengeance, or, perhaps, simply evil.

  Rushed footsteps alerted them all, and Yari Thorn appeared in the room.

  “My Queen,” she said, not sparing any urgency, “a Cyanan army comes, less than a half day’s travel!” The archer was breathing heavily, eyes wide and unblinking, wavy hair all a mess. It looked like she’d been riding for hours.

  Anza released Lyla and turned to Yari. “What? Cyanans? Where?”

  “In the woods under Red Valley. They’re armed for a siege. Anza, they mean to take the castle from us.”

  Anza’s eyes scanned Yari like she was reading a book. “How did you come to be in those woods?”

  Yari blinked, it seemed, for the first time since she had entered the room. “For Ivy, my ram. One last ride before I see him to the butcher.”

  Anza rushed out the cell, as if she’d forgotten both Zar and Lyla. But then the guard reminded her.

  “What shall I do with them?”

  Anza stopped in the doorway, turning to answer the man. “Keep them here for now. And if she tries to sing again, cut out her tongue.”

  The women left first, followed by the guard after he had locked their cell. Lyla sat down, her hand cupped over her mouth.

  “Are you ready for another charm?” Zar asked her.

  “Pssh,” Lyla hissed. “Have you a brain in that skull? If I sing again, they’ll take my tongue.”

  “You’re not going to sing,” Zar returned. “Talking alone, Lyla. You’ll have to do it with talking alone.”

  8

  “I don’t know why we’re talking,” said Lyla, voice sweeter than honey, almost a whisper, but with far too much fullness to ever be considered such. “You should rest yourself. Good meals and sleep are the best for health; sure, the former’s gone, but the latter should help.”

  Lyla had slid off the bench and faced him when she said it, words pouring over him like magic rain. When she started, Zar doubted anything would happen, but by the time she finished he found himself lost in her voice, wrapped in its resonance, a cocoon of the sweetest sounds.

  Zar didn’t feel tired, but he felt engaged. He waited for her next words like they were the only things that mattered, staring at her face, her mouth, rose petal lips uttering the sound of the heavens. He wanted to be near her. He scooted closer, his wounded shoulder brushing the stone bench, and he winced in pain. But Lyla drew him back in.

  “Think not of your wounds, not severed flesh, not violence or death, but respite, rest.”

  Zar was thinking that he still wasn’t tired, but then he blinked and his eyelids took far too long to reopen.

  “Is there anything better, Zar, than a sleep, calm and warm, where you can leave your troubles and all, and fall far from the storm?”

  She’s doing it, Zar thought, his body falling still and quiet. His mind was active, but his body sat dormant, and while he sat there breathing long, steady breaths, his thoughts turned into a dream. He saw Shahla in his dream, and Tuskin, and Barek. He saw his brother Alyn from Serradiia and the princesses R
hea and Brii. Lyla was even there. The dream was a lucid one, and he knew it wasn’t possible that all of them were with him now, all in the same place. But he enjoyed it anyway. It’s what he loved about dreams; there were no limits, no boundaries. If the mind acknowledged places and people to exist, they could exist together without any of the physical bounds of reality.

  He awoke and Lyla was grinning at him, looking about as proud as Zar imagined a person could look. It was one of many experiments they’d conducted since Anza had left them, and although it hadn’t even been a day, the girl was getting better. But it wasn’t enough.

  “It takes too long,” said Zar.

  “Too long?” Lyla crossed her arms, red eyebrows that matched her hair scrunching in disapproval. “I put you to sleep with a few words and you think it’s too long?”

  Zar shook his head stiffly. “What you can do is marvelous, but it won’t help us. It’s too—it’s not subtle enough.”

  Lyla’s fiery brows relaxed and evened out, and now the girl looked curious. “What do you mean?’

  “The guard’s already been put to sleep,” Zar explained. “Aye, you can do it fast, but the victim has to be engaged for it to work. The victim has to be listening. The moment you mention sleep he’ll dart away from the bars. We’ll never get the keys. He’ll know you’re trying to put him to sleep.”

  “Aye, Zar. Perhaps he will. But what choice do we have? What else can I do?”

  Zar thought hard. “Anza mentioned another charm, did she not? Infatuation.”

  Lyla shook her head and blew out a sigh. “Aye, that’s subtle. If I go after the man, he’d be a fool not to know what’s happening.”

  She was right, Zar knew, but what other options did they have? “Then simply try to talk him into it,” said Zar. “Talk him into releasing us.”

  The girl stared down at the floor in a daze, and then she spoke up. “I’ve tried it before. And it worked. But only for a moment.”

  Zar could see her recalling the memory, pulling it from her mind like a fish on a long line.

  “A horse trader. I asked him to sell me a horse for five gold instead of forty. He agreed, but he changed his mind a moment later.”

  Hope rushed Zar like a flood of waves, and he said, a bit too loud, “So you can do it.”

  “Sshh,” said Lyla. “I can do it but it doesn’t hold.”

  “You mean it hasn’t held, not yet. I daresay you need more practice. Try it on me.”

  The girl looked confused, then a little intrigued, and then confused all over again. “But you’re not a horse trader. Why would I—”

  “No.” Zar laughed out the word. “Try something else on me. Make me do something I don’t want to do. Talk me into something.”

  Lyla looked around the cell, tendrils of curly red locks fluttering over her shoulders.

  “Here? Like what? What can I make you do?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to be creative.”

  Zar would’ve said more, but the girl was already talking. She had jumped up, enlivened by some idea, and was looking down at him as she spoke the words.

  “Your shoulder’s wounded, and I’m quite sure the skin is torn, burnt and sore, and as strange as it seems, nothing would profit it more than sticking a finger into the gore.”

  Zar’s mind thought too many things. What is she doing? What is she saying? It sounds foolish, but I think I should listen. Once again, the allure of her words made him want to listen, but more than that, he wanted to interact, to participate. His hands started to move, but he stopped them.

  “Aye, lift your hand, it’s never too soon, to fiddle around and poke at the wound. The pain will be slight and brief—and soon—you’ll think it not as a curse, but more of a boon.”

  Zar didn’t miss a single word she had said, but it hadn’t caused him to move. He hadn’t thought that it had, at least, until he looked down to find he had one hand over his cauterized shoulder wound, fingers wiggling, as if restless. How he wanted to poke his thumb into it, even though he knew the pain it would cause—he still wanted to do it. More than anything!

  Tuskin perched on a log beside Baram near a bonfire, letting his spear roll to the ground, stretching out his legs. It was dawn, and the camp was still and quiet. A few of the men were roasting things over one of the many fires, others were still resting in their tents.

  Tuskin watched as Prince Hinrik limped into his tent, wondering what had possessed the lad to put himself in such danger unnecessarily. He had nearly gotten killed.

  “The prince fights brashly,” said Tuskin, hoping Baram could shed some light on the young man’s recklessness. “Is it always so?”

  The Cyanan commander shuffled on the log and laughed. “Always. He has all the boldness of his father, but none of the caution.”

  The man kept talking, but Tuskin was no longer paying attention. There was another sound—and one that was far more important—that he heard ringing through the forest air.

  “Do you hear that bird?” asked Tuskin, snatching up his spear and rising to his feet.

  The call was soft but distinct, a rapid succession of short, sharp chirps sounding ahead in the distance. The commander rose to his feet, listening to the sequence of cheeping.

  “What of it?”

  “It’s a northern cardinal, that one. They sing that song when humans approach—a warnin’ to other cardinals, or anyone else who's got sense enough to listen.”

  “Aye, because we’re here,” said Baram, face an orange glow in the firelight. “Five hundred of us.”

  “But we ain’t approachin’.” Tuskin shook his head. “We’ve already made camp, been stationary fer hours. A poor warning—and a late one. No, this call comes from far ahead. Someone else disturbs this forest.”

  Tuskin looked ahead through the trees, and their branches swayed nervously in the wind. The breeze whispered things to Tuskin, things most men were too far removed from nature to understand. He listened to the forest, drew its air deep into his lungs. He moved to the nearest tree, running a hand across its bark, putting his ear against it, then falling to his knees and putting his ear to the ground.

  “What is it?”

  Baram had barely gotten the words out when Tuskin looked up at him. “There be others in this wood. Get them up, get them armed, and get them ready!”

  Baram’s voice rang out through the woods, and not long after it, Ringo the Hammer’s. But more than that, other sounds could be heard, a flooding of feet, voices calling out over them like a song over beats of a drum. The music swelled until it sounded like it was all around them, and that’s when they saw the figures sprinting through the trees, bows drawn and spears raised, slings hurling stones at them.

  It was stale bread in the morning and moldy bread at night. Considering they were fed twice a day and they had been thrown bread eight times since Anza had visited them, Zar estimated that four days had passed. Their progress thus far made Lyla happy, and Zar, well, it made Zar a little bit nervous.

  “I don’t want to talk about that.” Zar was serious. It wasn’t a part of the training; it wasn’t a game where he resisted solely to test the girl and see if she could draw it out of him. He really didn’t want to talk about it—sincerely, honestly.

  Lyla responded how Zar hoped she wouldn’t, words of poetry, a voice of song. “You do, I vow, or you wouldn’t be talking to me now. It’s a natural thing to confide in another, your troubles only fester when hidden and covered. Tell me, Zar, tell me—aye—leave nothing out, and tell no lie.”

  “I had never loved a woman before Ramla,” said Zar. “Not ever. And now I love two. Made love, aye, shown love through kind gestures, spoke loving words, which were naught but lies, really. But I didn’t really love—only Ramla—but ours was a different kind of love.”

  “Where is she now?” Lyla asked, and before Zar could notice the young woman hadn’t bothered to use rhythm or rhyme, he was already answering the question.

  “She died. No, she was kill
ed,” Zar corrected himself. “Killed by the Scarlet Quill, whom I now love.”

  “How can you love her, then?”

  “I’m not sure I have a choice,” said Zar, half chuckling. He looked across the stone bench at Lyla, who sat at the other end. She looked concerned, with still, wet eyes under bent red brows. Was she still charming him? “I’ve known her for years, looked after her. I’m good friends with her father. She’s bright and she’s beautiful. I’ve known her for so long that I almost feel as if I owe her something.”

  “And the other?” Lyla questioned. “Tell me about the other.”

  “Princess Rhea,” said Zar, smiling like she was there with him, as if speaking her name had conjured her up to stand in front of him. “I’ve never met anyone so gentle, so wise, so kind. She is filled with an unexplainable peace that I can only attribute to the goodness of the land she lives in, the love of her family, or her unwavering belief in the One God. Perhaps all three. The burden I had carried for years—she helped me discard it with a few simple words.”

  “They both sound lovely.”

  “And so they are.”

  Lyla smiled. “You may love both, but I don’t think you’re in love with either. A subtle distinction that means a lot, I daresay.” She gave Zar a pointed look and giggled.

  In that it didn’t feel like she was charming him at all. She was speaking true, it seemed, wearing a knowing face, precocious and keen, red hair and blush lips, her skin the color of desert sand.

  Zar laughed. She had used his words. I daresay. She was talking like him. Was this a part of the charm? Was it why she hadn’t bothered speaking poetry, hadn’t bothered to rhyme? Is it that she no longer needed to? Was this a development in her abilities or nothing more than a simple joke, a bit of light fun to ease the weight of the conversation? Was he still under her charm?

  Zar felt that, although he thought he didn’t want to talk about Shahla and Rhea, maybe he really did. Perhaps he needed someone to talk to about it, since Asha hadn’t been with him for quite some time. Among those thoughts, though, the idea that he was completely hypnotized surfaced as well. If the girl had made him talk about things he didn’t want to talk about while making him think that he did, that would be even more scary than the fact that he wasn’t sure if he was under her control or not.