‘You have no proof,’ Roh said.
Finn’s gaze was icy. ‘I have had my suspicions long enough to make enquiries in the realms above. The council is satisfied with my findings.’
Roh opened her mouth to demand he share his proof, but dread had begun to rise up in her and she pictured Odi standing before the cage of bones, the jewelled hairpin poised in the lock. Gods, Odi. What have you done? She didn’t dare look at him. Couldn’t bring herself to imagine what was next for him. For her. She looked wildly around the hall, desperate for help, in what form or from whom she didn’t know. She only knew that this was bad. Incredibly bad, and she could do nothing to stop what was coming.
A gale of cold wind swept across the hall, and Queen Delja landed before them, flying back in from the galleries above.
Roh’s chest soared with hope, but the queen didn’t meet her pleading gaze.
‘He will play,’ Queen Delja said simply.
At the shove of a guard, Odi staggered forward. Roh opened her mouth to object, but she couldn’t. There was no arguing with the queen. She tried to give him a reassuring look, but he didn’t meet her eye as he was pushed up to the piano stool.
Roh’s insides were screaming. They couldn’t do this to him, they couldn’t – Odi was shaking his head. There was some kind of mistake. There had to be. He couldn’t, wouldn’t. A blade pressed against the side of his neck and he stilled. Roh exhaled a trembling breath and blood trickled into her palms at her talons digging into her skin as she watched him forced onto the stool at the piano. She couldn’t look away from the silver blade resting against his skin, couldn’t stop herself envisioning his head tumbling from his shoulders.
‘Play,’ Queen Delja commanded softly.
Without acknowledging the queen, Odi straightened his posture and lifted his hands to the keys. Still wearing his half-gloves, he positioned his fingers, resting them just above the gleaming bones. Then, he closed his eyes, and began.
Odi’s long fingers danced across the keys of bone as though they had been created for the very task. The melody that drifted from the piano was unlike anything Roh had ever heard, had ever imagined possible. Each chord, each accent was richer, more powerful than the last, full of heart and heartache, like Odi was cracking himself open and baring his soul. The music flowed like a powerful river flooding through parched lands. Its tone was dark and tense, telling a tragic, mesmerising tale. Roh could see past the case of the piano and into its core, where beneath the lid and against the soundboard, the press of a key beneath Odi’s masterful touch caused a hammer to strike, creating a unique note that vibrated against her soul. She had never seen or heard a musician like Odi. His fingers waltzed across the keys, exposing every pulse of feeling in the music. The song was full of colour, of life, and it flooded the Great Hall with thunderous chords and its volatile build.
Roh’s eyes were burning. Unshed tears blurred her vision. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, but this? She blinked them back, and swallowed the lump in her throat as Odi played the final, heartrending note. Roh tore her eyes away from him, to find everyone around him transfixed.
A singular applause broke the silence. The sound was sharp and cold.
Queen Delja. Her wings flared behind her as she turned to her guards. ‘Take the Prince of Melodies to the musician holdings,’ she ordered.
‘What?’ Roh’s talons shot out and she clawed her way towards Odi, knocking down an unprepared guard and shoving another. ‘You can’t!’ she cried. ‘He belongs with me for the duration —’
‘Roh?’ Odi called, his voice cracking as he was dragged away like an animal.
‘He is in the Jaktaren’s ledger,’ the queen said. ‘He belongs to the guild, and therefore Saddoriel.’ But the queen’s voice sounded far away as Roh fought against the swipes at her. She wouldn’t allow this, she was going to —
Someone blocked her. Elder Winslow Ward dug her own talons into Roh’s arm, the sharp pain wrenching her from her siege of madness. ‘The queen gave an order.’
And suddenly, Roh felt the eyes on her, the eyes of every single cyren in the Great Hall, realising what they’d seen … A Saddorien cyren, fighting for a human.
The grip on her loosened and Roh fell to her knees with a gasp. But he was gone. Out of sight. Hauled away like some beast. Around her, she heard the sound of the competitors and elders leaving. She was alone in the Great Hall, the lights not nearly as bright and golden as they had been before. She collapsed further into herself, not caring that the platforms had vanished, and now the gaping chasms either side of the bridges were back. Where are the musician holdings? Will he be protected there? Does he still have his token? … What happens to me? To our place in the tournament? Why didn’t he tell me? That he was – is – the Prince of Melodies? Roh wanted to cry, wanted tears to spill thick and heavy, wanted to sob her heart out. For Odi, for her, for everything they had been through and everything they had done. Everything that hadn’t been enough. But the tears did not come. They never did. Roh tipped her head back, and closed her eyes against the ghost gaze of the marble statues above.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, but all at once, music filled the Great Hall and all of Saddoriel. From somewhere in the lair, the song and its deep, sombre notes came from two familiar fiddles; the new melody more haunting than ever before.
Chapter Nineteen
Roh wandered the Lower Sector of Saddoriel listlessly, the empty place at her side like an open wound. Banners scrawled with Neith’s name were still strung up across windows and archways, mocking Roh. You don’t belong here. No one would bow to you … The water runner’s words tore open old hurts, most of which Roh had inflicted herself. In a flash of rage, Roh let out a cry and her talons tore through a Neith for Queen sign, the loud rip echoing down the passageway. She shredded the fabric, leaving it in ribbons on the damp ground. She whirled around, looking for another to destroy. She would find them all. She would tear them down one by one – she would show the lair what sort of cyren Neith of the Water Runners was. A traitor. An underhanded wretch. It wasn’t until loose thread webbed her talons that Roh’s fiery fury ebbed, fading into a lukewarm shame as she picked them out. The lowborns didn’t know or care what the water runner had done. Roh herself was no better. She’d cheated her friends to enter the tournament. She’d set traps for humans to get here. And she’d allowed the guards to take Odi away to gods knew where …
‘Rohesia, of the Bone Cleaners?’ a timid voice sounded, startling her.
Roh flushed, finding a messenger standing behind her. How much had the fledgling seen of her little outburst? Did Roh still look the part of the savage, raging beast? She must have, if the fledgling’s cautious step towards her was anything to go by.
Roh tried and failed to muster her last shred of dignity. ‘Yes?’
‘This is for you.’ The messenger handed her an envelope. Smooth wax brushed against her fingertips, a pair of outstretched wings stamped within. The queen’s signet.
Roh took it, the parchment feeling heavy in her trembling hands as she turned it over. Scrawled across the face of it in black ink were two words: Trial Three. She looked to the messenger in disbelief, but the cyren had already gone, eager to escape the clawing talons of the feral animal she’d likely seen moments earlier.
Trial Three. Roh stared at the words, the wax seal on the back warming in her palm, Odi’s absence at her side pulsing. Was this a trick? Was she not immediately eliminated without Odi? Was that why it was coming from the queen? Was this her way of helping Roh? This at least meant Odi was safe, and whole. But she wasn’t ready to open the envelope. How could she be? There in the dim passageway, Roh slid down the wall, crumpling into a heap on the damp ground. Quiet hummed around her. She couldn’t remember getting from the Great Hall to here. The last thing she could recall was Odi calling her name and talons piercing her arm. Sure enough, when she looked down, there were punctures in her skin and tracks of dry blood. Elder Wins
low Ward had done that.
‘The queen gave an order,’ had been the words in Roh’s ear. The queen had indeed commanded Odi to play, had ordered him away. The same queen whose sadness had been so poignant down in the cells of the prison. The same queen who had defended Roh at the victor’s feast. The same queen who had winked at her only hours ago and now had offered a tether to the tournament, whatever that meant. Roh stared at the envelope in her hands, knowing that whatever it held would offer her no salvation. Standing, she shoved it in her pocket unopened.
It wasn’t long before Roh found herself in the empty workshop, sitting at her old workbench, head in hands. Her fingers rested against her circlet and she wondered if this was where she belonged, after all. This whole time, had she been mad to want more? Her skin crawled as the image of Cerys filled her mind: jagged talons and chopped hair. Perhaps madness did run in her blood. Perhaps there truly was no escaping who had made her, or what she was. Roh surveyed the workshop. She had no idea of the hour, but it must have been late for the place to be abandoned like this. The space that had been sectioned off for Finn’s hideous contraption had been converted back to its usual state. Benches and barrels of bones lined the room. She turned her attention to her secret project, which remained hidden beneath its sheet at the back of the workshop. Ignoring the nagging sensation of the unopened envelope burning a hole in her pocket, she went to it, pulling the fabric away. It looked smaller somehow, and simpler than she remembered. Even at first glance, she noticed the elements that she would change, after having seen much more complex architecture in the Upper Sector. She would have to change a lot if she wanted to be happy with it now.
‘I heard what happened …’ Ames’ voice drifted into the workshop. He was always the first to know everything and he had a strange habit of showing up without being summoned, Roh noted, not for the first time.
It was only upon hearing his smooth tone that she realised it was exactly why she had come here. For comfort, for advice, for familiarity. She had hoped he would find her. But she didn’t look up, didn’t let on what she was feeling. She never did with him. Their bond had always been a complex web of roles – mentor and student, guardian and nestling, ancient cyren and reckless fledgling. A thread of shared otherness linked them in mostly silent solidarity. They were not close, nor were they distant; they simply were with one another. Ames was the closest thing besides Cerys that Roh had to family, and yet there had always been a barrier between them, a wall of formality that Roh longed to break down.
‘What are they saying?’ she asked.
‘That you fought for him. The human.’
Roh did look up then, her throat going dry. She met her mentor’s gaze. ‘I think … I think he might be my friend, Ames.’
‘I see.’
Was it disapproval in his tone? Surely not, when Ames himself seemed so at ease with Odi that he’d secretly opened up a dialogue with the human.
‘Do you know where the holdings for musicians are?’ she asked cautiously.
Ames lifted a single brow. ‘No.’
Was he lying? Ames was the master of knowing things that others didn’t, and was even better at keeping that knowledge to himself. Roh studied his weathered face, but couldn’t pick up on any of his usual tells. Perhaps she’d lost her touch. She sighed and turned back to her project, scanning the tiny pieces of bone she had so painstakingly glued into place so long ago. Back when the tournament had seemed like a distant goal. Ames came to stand beside her, peering over her shoulder at the model. Roh realised with a start that he’d never seen it before, not up close, not like this. All at once, she became too aware of its flaws. But the self-consciousness she expected to flood her remained at bay, her mind still tangled in thoughts of Odi.
‘Is it …’ She hesitated.
‘Is it what?’
She mulled over the words before she finally spoke them. ‘Is it wrong? For him to be my friend?’
Ames tugged at his collar and turned his gaze to her. ‘Only you can answer that, Rohesia.’
‘I need him to …’
‘Complete the tournament?’
‘To be safe. I owe him that much at least.’
Ames nodded slowly, his expression still unreadable. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What would you do if it were any other friend?’
‘What?’
‘What would you do?’
‘I’d … I’d try to get them out.’
‘Try? You wouldn’t just try. If Harlyn or Orson had been taken from you, you’d get them back. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Simple? How can I, Ames? He’s being held on the queen’s orders.’
Ames gave an infuriating shrug. ‘That’s not for me to say. You know I can offer you no official assistance.’ His stress on the word ‘official’ told her that he believed he’d already given her enough unofficial assistance.
‘So, I’m on my own for this one,’ she muttered, pulling the unopened envelope from her pocket and sliding it across the bench towards him.
Ames stared at it, as though he could see its contents through the parchment and seal. ‘You haven’t opened it.’
Though it wasn’t exactly a question, Roh shook her head. ‘I can’t bring myself to. And what’s the point, without Odi?’
‘You’re talking like you won’t see him again.’
‘I might not.’
Ames gripped her arm hard, startling her once more. Roh couldn’t remember a time in the last decade when Ames had actually touched her. ‘You were made for this tournament, Rohesia,’ he said with intensity, his lilac eyes latched onto hers. ‘Your human friend will be safe where he is for the time being. Take the night with Orson and Harlyn. You have a choice, Rohesia. You can give up, or you can do what you think you were born to do.’ He slid the envelope back across to her. ‘You have a choice,’ he repeated, before he stood and left her staring after him.
Roh pushed open the door to her old sleeping quarters with a creak and stepped inside. It was smaller than she remembered. Less than half the size of her quarters in the Upper Sector and shared between six cyrens, or five, without her. It was dark, the fire at the centre down to its last glowing embers, and the room was filled with the soft rhythm of steady breathing. Roh could just make out the outline of her empty bed. Not knowing what else to do, she went to it, pulled the covers back and slipped beneath. It was surreal, being here. The bed was narrow and the mattress thin enough to feel each slat beneath it, the rough fabric itching against her skin. Had it always done that? She closed her eyes, embracing the velvety dark behind her lids, and sighed.
‘Roh?’ Orson whispered from beside her. ‘Roh, what are you doing here?’
Roh opened her eyes to see Orson’s outline sitting up in the dark, reaching over to nudge Harlyn.
‘What?’ Harlyn grumbled, tugging her covers tighter around her.
‘Roh’s here.’
‘What?’
‘Roh’s here, Harlyn. Wake up.’
Harlyn muttered a curse before throwing off her sheets. ‘What is it?’
‘Not here,’ Roh told them.
Harlyn scoffed. ‘Oh, we’ll just step into my private council room, shall we?’
‘Harlyn!’ Orson scolded. ‘Roh, she’s just tired.’
‘It’s alright. How about the bathing chamber?’
Quietly, they took their quilts and ducked into the adjoining washroom.
‘Damn, it’s freezing in here,’ Harlyn murmured, wrapping herself in her covers before seating herself on the cool tiles. ‘Can’t you start one of your little fires for us, Orson?’ Then, she looked around wildly. ‘Where’s the human?’
Once the three of them were huddled on the ground in a circle, Roh met their gazes. ‘They took him.’
Harlyn gaped at her. ‘Who took him? The Haertel worm?’
‘The queen.’
‘What? How? Why?’
Each question was a sharp blow to Roh’s gut. She explained about Odi being a musician and being
in the Jaktaren’s ledger.
Harlyn let out a low whistle. ‘So they can do whatever they want?’
‘Apparently. And … that’s not all,’ Roh said.
‘Gods, Roh, don’t draw it out. What’s happened?’ Harlyn nudged her gently.
‘It can’t be worse than them taking Odi,’ Orson blurted.
Roh produced the still-unopened envelope from her pocket and handed it to Orson. ‘I can’t bring myself to …’
‘Trial Three,’ Orson read aloud, glancing from Harlyn back to Roh. ‘Do you want us to help you?’ she asked.
Unable to find the words, Roh nodded, watching as Orson slid a talon beneath the wax seal and broke it.
‘What does it say?’ Harlyn said impatiently.
Orson unfolded the envelope, her eyes scanning the instructions within, until the piece of parchment she held began to shake in her hands.
‘What is it?’ Roh’s voice came out raw, the pit of her stomach filled with dread.
‘You …’ Orson hesitated before she passed the parchment to Harlyn, whose eyes widened with utter horror as she too read the details.
Harlyn placed the instructions facedown on the cold floor and met Roh’s gaze. ‘You have to retrieve the scale of a sea serpent.’
Roh heard her own breath whistle. ‘Say that again …’
‘You heard me the first time,’ Harlyn said, giving her a pointed look.
Roh nearly jumped as Orson balled her quilt up in her fists, burying her face in it. A muffled scream sounded, full of rage and disbelief. She screamed again, her body heaving. When she pulled her face away from the fabric, her eyes were rimmed with red and saliva stretched from her chin to the blanket. ‘How …?’ she panted. ‘How could they do this? That tradition was banned, years and years ago. How can they …?’
Harlyn reached out and wiped Orson’s mouth with the quilt with surprising tenderness before turning back to Roh. ‘It’s suicide,’ she said.
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