Arise

by Tanya Schofield

  Bethcelamin’s face was pale and shocked, and Jayden watched her eyes dart from the cold fireplace to the empty plates on the tray, to the bed piled high with blankets, and back to him. To her credit, she maintained her silence as he ignored her and climbed into the bed.

  Fear gnawing at an empty belly, a few sleepless nights on a cold stone floor - Jayden had broken stronger men with less. His wayward wife would be desperate to please him before long.

  13

  Melody woke to the fierce rumbling of her hunger, and the pleasant exhaustion of a night well-spent. Jovan had brought them to an inn much closer to the Keep, and managed to resist Melody’s insistent passion until Senna had determined that the low, tight cramps were most likely simple hunger. After that, however … food had been the last thing on her mind.

  She smiled and stretched, arching her back, laying one hand on the slight swell of her belly and reaching for Jovan with the other— her hand found only empty air. He was gone, she remembered. He had kissed her nose and bid her rest while he returned to the Keep to speak with Duke Thordike.

  A stronger surge of hunger brought her to her feet, this one a sharp and demanding reminder that she had skipped dinner. She needed to eat, whether Jovan had returned or not. Melody dressed and descended to the common room, where an older musician was just beginning to pick a tune from his lute. There was a sizable crowd, but she was too hungry to care as she paid for her meal and took a seat closer to the bard than she would have preferred.

  Duke Thordike needs magic users, she thought, cutting into the cold meat. Her own dream-self had told her that it was the only way to succeed - as many as she could awaken, the sooner the better. She remembered again the frightened face of the girl who had repaired the mug, and Aggravain’s question - what if they don’t want it?

  Melody tore off a piece of the hard bread, and softened it in the gravy. They didn’t have the luxury of choice, she realized. Phelwen Semaj was not yet at his full strength after manifesting, but that only added to the urgency. She chewed slowly, considering the people tapping or nodding along to the music, maybe twenty of them. There wouldn’t be enough, she realized. Even if they stopped in every town between here and Cabinsport …

  The closer they got to Semaj, the fewer people they would find. Melody cleaned the scraps on her plate with the remainder of her bread and washed the last bite down with the icy well water. She would have to change her song, again, not just to give the people a purpose and direction, but to reach still more. She sat back, musing, sinking into the beginnings of a trance, exploring the possibilities of the magic.

  “Yes!” The bard cried, stopping his song. “You, come! Join me!” Melody jolted awake to see him gesturing to her with a wide smile. “Don’t hide,” he begged. “You have a lovely voice!”

  Scattered applause rippled through the common room, and Melody thought she might throw up. You must, she told herself. There’s no other way to reach them all. She stood, smoothing her skirt, and the applause got louder.

  “Yes, yes!” the musician urged, offering her his hand as she stepped up beside him. “Do you have a favorite song?”

  Melody hadn’t heard many, but there was a longer one she remembered, an adventure story about a boy and a wolf. The rhythm and cadence of it were a perfect carrier for the power in her voice. The bard nodded, smiling widely when she described it to him.

  “Aye,” he nodded, turning some knobs at the end of his lute. “Do you know the words?”

  She shook her head.

  “No matter,” he said. “Just do what you were doing, I’ll take care of the rest.” He began to play, and was greeted by a few cheers as people recognized the song.

  Melody stood by his side, swallowing her nervousness, and when he began to sing she layered her own voice beneath his, subtle and supportive. She closed her eyes, searching for the magical trance she had been in before, and soon the attention of the crowd didn’t matter at all. The magic was everywhere, swirling currents of it, just as she had seen on the journey here, in the midst of the storm. She could see every person in the room, not with her eyes, but outlined in her mind. Magic was everywhere, it was everything, even the tables and chairs and mugs were made of it.

  Sending something as weightless as her intentions out on those currents was as easy as dropping a leaf in a river, and Melody’s first message was to come, to fill the common room, to hear her song. Because the magic ran through everything, her call didn’t need to stay tethered to her voice, and even those outside found themselves summoned. She tried to imagine the streets of the city, though she had only traveled a few of them, and she floated her request on the currents of power that moved on those streets.

  Deeper into her focus, it was beyond simple to divide her attention, sending magic into the bard and the instrument and his song. An idea surfaced, sending ripples of understanding through her. Melody concentrated, adding a reflective edge to the power she was lending to the man beside her. Melody watched it settle into him, knowing his music would now reflect and magnify hers. She returned her full attention to her own song.

  She felt the room filling, felt the people listening outside the doors and beneath the window, felt the kitchen girls stand slack, felt the cook’s hands slow, knuckle-deep in the dough for that night’s bread. Everyone had paused, it was as if the very room had held its breath— that’s when she noticed the other energy.

  It was cold, Melody realized, a dark spot of icy intent, spreading out from a single point. She divided her attention again, seeking out the source. This cold was dangerous. This cold crept in and around the magic that made up the people listening. It would freeze them where they stood if she didn’t stop it, it had already begun, and the stain of it was spreading rapidly through the room.

  Melody swept it back, strengthening the magical currents around the cloud of cold, encircling it and condensing it where it had begun. The room warmed once more as she held the dark, freezing magic in place and examined it with a detached curiosity while she sang the song that would awaken those who heard her.

  A man. He had used the cold to kill before - it was there in his thoughts, as easy to see as the swirls of magic that formed everything around them. First an animal, then several … he had been thrilled that their deaths left the hides unscarred. Then the merchant, just last night, dropped where he stood with ice around his heart, and his coins just there for the taking. Today was nothing more than an experiment, how many people could be frozen at once?

  Melody left the man to the cold, letting her magic protect the others while reflecting his own power and intention back onto himself. She shifted her song mid-note, determined that no one with a similar inclination for violence would find themselves with that kind of power. She strengthened the call to service, ensuring that when they awakened to their magic, every person within the reach of her song would seek out Duke Thordike, eager for training.

  The musician let the adventure ballad end, staring at the strange girl beside him as the common room erupted with applause. Coins landed on the stage, more than a week’s earnings for a single song, but she wasn’t even looking.

  “Shall we play another?” he asked, not waiting for her nod before he broke into a dancing song he’d only just learned - something about singing with this girl made him feel as if he could play anything, and he intended to hang on to the feeling as long as he could. The crowd cheered, and soon the room was full of clapping hands and dancing feet.

  Melody heard none of it, she was still entranced by the ripples of magic as they spread and swirled through the inn’s common room. The freezing dark magic was gone, and she sang this time not to awaken anyone, but to celebrate that power, be a part of it - her energy raced through the crowd, fragmenting until there was one of her to dance with each of them. The magic was an ocean and she was each fish and every wave, she was the part and the whole, and everything was possible…

  Jovan had to shove his way into the common room, and the single glimpse of Melody
standing beside the energetic bard was all it took for him to redouble his efforts to reach her. Her face struck him cold … she was calm. In front of this many people, with shouting and stomping in every direction, Melody was absolutely still, save her lips as she sang. He had seen that face on her once before, in the aftermath of the deadly attack in a dangerous blizzard. That attack had left him wounded - and Melody hadn’t sensed it. She had been lost in the magic, Rhodoban had guessed later, but in the moment there was just that terrifying blank expression.

  “Get her down,” Jovan told the others, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. “Stop them.”

  It was Derek who reached the bard first, moments before Jovan made it to the small stage. The light, playful tune broke off sharply as the musician noticed the men approaching with warning on their faces. The crowd seemed not to care, cheering and throwing more coins. Melody’s song stopped when the bard did, Jovan noted, but her face remained blank.

  “Melody? Melody!” Jovan took her hands, squeezed her fingers, but she gave no response.

  “I - I’m sorry,” the bard said, dropping his hat as he scrambled to simultaneously avoid the two men and pick up the coins. He risked a glance up and paused, realizing that Melody hadn’t moved or acknowledged anyone. He frowned. “Is she all right?”

  “She will be,” Derek said, hoping he was not wrong. “You stay,” he told the musician as he handed him his hat. “Keep singing.”

  Jovan gathered an unprotesting Melody into his arms. Derek followed him off the stage through the path Rhodoban and Edwin were clearing.

  The bard nodded, waiting until the strangers had pushed back through the unprecedented crowd and disappeared before once more beginning to play.

  Upstairs, Jovan sent Gage to fetch Senna while he set the still unresponsive Melody on their bed. He knelt before her, still holding her hands.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Edwin asked, pressing his wrist to her forehead and finding no fever. “She was singing, right? So she’s awake?”

  “I don’t understand how her magic works,” Rhodoban said. “I’ve heard stories, though, of dream walkers who refuse to wake. They just get … lost.”

  “Well I can’t find her in a crowd,” Senna said from the doorway. “Out, please. There’s no room for all of you.”

  Derek and Edwin trailed out behind Rhodoban, and Senna shut the door behind them.

  “How bad is it?” she asked Jovan.

  “I can’t feel her,” he admitted. “It’s like before, with the bear, when she changed the weather.”

  Senna frowned. “Let’s lay her down, I’ll see what I can do. How did you bring her back last time?”

  “I stabbed myself,” Jovan said, guiding Melody to lay flat on the bed. “In an open wound.”

  Senna searched his face for the joke, but found truth instead. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” was all she could think to say. She sat beside Melody, her gaze lingering on the swell of her friend’s belly. She placed her hand there, frowning.

  “Is the baby all right?” Jovan asked.

  Senna nodded. “He’s fine,” she said, moving her hand and focusing, looking for any physical reason Melody might be unreachable.

  “He?”

  “Sshh.” After a few long moments, Senna shook her head. “There’s nothing,” she said. “Her body is not the problem. You said you couldn’t feel her. What does that mean? How do the two of you … talk? When you don’t, I mean.”

  “It’s all her,” Jovan shrugged. “The talking, anyway. For the rest, it’s like we …echo. I feel what she feels. She feels what I feel. We’re connected.”

  “Which is why you stabbed yourself before?”

  He nodded. “She didn’t feel when I got bit,” he said. “Not enough to come back. I thought if it hurt more, she might notice. She did.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Rhodoban stepped in. “I have an idea,” he said. “Senna, do you have anything to put me to sleep?”

  14

  Senna didn’t, but Edwin did, and soon the mage was lying on a hastily assembled pallet of cloaks and blankets. Despite Senna’s insistence that Melody wasn’t asleep, Rhodoban was convinced she was in a kind of waking dream. He believed he could find her, he just had to be dreaming to do it. Since the next best idea involved stabbing Jovan, they agreed it was worth the effort.

  Jovan perched in the chair beside the bed, holding Melody’s hand. He stroked her forehead, entwined his fingers in her hair, adjusted the Havenstone pendant against her skin… anything to be touching her. Senna sat on the floor beside Rhodoban, with her back against the wall, lost in her own thoughts. Neither of them spoke for what seemed like an eternity.

  “She moved,” Jovan said. “She squeezed my hand.” He examined her face expectantly, but for a long moment, nothing happened. Without warning, Melody’s eyes flew open. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. At the same time, Rhodoban sat straight up.

  “I’ve got her,” Rhodoban gasped, gulping air and coughing as if he’d been drowning, not sleeping.

  “By the Break,” Jovan cursed, pulling Melody up. He tried to embrace her but she pushed him away, her face wet with tears. She drew her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms, sobbing.

  “What happened?” Senna asked, bracing Rhodoban and patting his back as he struggled for breath.

  “Melody?” Jovan reached out to touch her shaking back. He could feel their connection again, but the only thing he felt from her was sadness. “Are you all right?”

  “No!” she wailed softly, and with the word, they all knew - she hadn’t wanted to come back. Melody hadn’t gotten lost in the magic, she had surrendered to it.

  “Was it a dream?” Jovan asked, looking to Rhodoban for an answer.

  “It wasn’t her forest,” the mage said, his voice rough. “It was an ocean. She was underneath. She couldn’t hear me when I spoke, and when I swam down to her, I couldn’t form the words… I grabbed her to swim back up. She fought.”

  “I’ll say she did,” Senna said, looking at the scratches on Rhodoban’s arm. “How is that even possible?”

  “Melody, please,” Jovan said. “Talk to us. Where were you?”

  “Home,” she whispered, but she had regained control over her voice. She picked her head up, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “It felt like home.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rhodoban said. “I had to, Melody.”

  “I know.” She crossed her legs and sat up straighter, placing her palms on the bed as if to confirm that it was real. “I’m not done here. She tried to tell me, I heard her but…” Melody tightened her fingers in the blanket, and then reached for Jovan’s hand to squeeze that.

  “Who?” Senna asked, finding more scratches on Rhodoban’s other arm. “Who tried to tell you?”

  “Goddess? Myself? I don’t know. I didn’t want to listen. Without him …” Melody turned her sad eyes to the mage, and shrugged.

  “Rhodoban,” Jovan said, “I am in your debt.”

  “We all are,” Senna said. “Melody, do you think you could…?” She gestured at Rhodoban’s arms.

  The mage shook his head. “Wait, I don’t know if she should use—”

  Melody gave a half-smile. “Healing’s easy,” she said, not for the first time.

  Before their eyes, the scratches on his arms disappeared, and Senna’s eyes went wide. Melody was across the room from the mage, she hadn’t even touched him. No Healer she had ever heard of could do that.

  “You’re getting stronger,” Senna observed.

  “The magic is already there.” Melody’s fingers twisted in the blanket as she tried to put her feelings into words. “I’m just seeing it more clearly. I’m … part of it, and it’s so simple when I’m there, but I’m also … here.”

  “I’m glad you are,” Jovan said, reaching for her hand again.

  “I am too.” Rhodoban pulled his sleeves back down. “I never would have been able to find a waking dream-state like tha
t before. It’s your song, isn’t it? You’re waking up magic in people, but if they’re already awake, it just gets stronger?”

  She nodded. “It’s difficult to put into words, but yes.”

  “So why can’t I do anything?” Jovan asked. “I’ve heard you sing, but I can’t throw fire around like him, or fix things like that girl in the last inn could. Neither can the others.”

  “Not all magic is the same,” Melody said, thoughtful. “I can actually see it now, when I’m singing. I see the magic. It’s everywhere, in everything, and I can actually touch it. Some people, like Rhodoban, have more of it in their heads. Other people are already good at a thing, and the magic just makes them better.”

  Senna frowned. “You see it? Is it just when you’re singing, or all the time?”

  Melody chewed lightly at her bottom lip before she answered. “I have to try,” she finally said. “It’s when I focus. It’s like closing my eyes and waking up somewhere else.”

  “Like an ocean.” Rhodoban remembered her waking dream, and how deep he’d had to go to bring her back.

  Melody nodded.

  “That’s when I can’t feel you,” Jovan realized. “Like on the journey here, when you stopped the blizzard and the bears. That part of you really is somewhere else.”

  “I think so. I was so focused, I didn’t sense when you got bitten.” She paused. “No, I did. It was after, though …” Her forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember. “I felt your pain,” she said. “Didn’t I?”

  “It was probably when I knelt down.” Jovan sent a warning glance towards Senna. He didn’t want Melody knowing what he had done to reach her, how desperate he had been. “Moving hurt worse than getting bitten,” he said. “The important thing is that you’re back now.”

  Melody sighed. “The magic is everywhere,” she said again. “Which means the Lich King is drawing on it, every day. If he can see what I see, manipulate it like I can… We have to stop him, Jovan.”