She takes a step back, away from the edge in his voice.
He steps forward. Grabs her arm, his fingers digging in hard.
“Why do you have to act that way?” he says. “I just want to talk to you.”
She looks up. It doesn’t matter now anyway. She sees the stone set of his eyes—the second part of the curse. All the breath rushes from her lungs. The serpents shiver.
“Please leave me alone.”
“Please leave me alone,” he repeats in a sing-song voice.
She turns. Breaks into a run. Hears a name (one of those names) carried on the breeze and quickens her steps before it can echo in her ears.
The serpents wake. See what happens? they say. See what you make happen?
“Stop it,” she whispers. “Please.”
Your fault.
She locks her apartment door behind her and covers her ears, but still, the serpents whisper sharp-barbed reminders she doesn’t need; she knows all too well where the blame falls. Where it’s always fallen.
All your fault. You shouldn’t have smiled at Poseidon. You shouldn’t have been there.
She curls up in a ball on the floor, praying the serpents will fall to silence, but of course they don’t.
§
Poseidon said he wanted to talk. He lied.
“It’s not my fault you’re so beautiful,” he said.
But what about when she begged him to stop? When he pressed his hand over her mouth to hold in her screams? When he ripped open her tunic?
After, she went into seclusion. It was for the best. A few months later, when she braved the world again, her eyes, her face, safely hidden behind a veil, she heard the first whispers.
Serpentine and human both.
§
The intercom buzzes. A moment later, a gruff voice says, “Delivery.”
“Leave it at the door,” Medi calls out.
When the footsteps retreat, she brings the box inside and slices open the tape. The serpents press against her scalp as she crushes and grinds and blends, holding tight to hope.
§
She sits on the floor in the corner of her kitchen, amid a scatter of leaves and berries and drops of oil. Nothing has worked. Nothing. She rests her face in her hands, her shoulders slumped.
The curse has won. They have won.
Silent tears slip between her fingers. Doesn’t she deserve peace after all this time? Hasn’t she paid enough for Poseidon’s lust?
One serpent curls around her ear. Your fault, it whispers softly.
But why? What has she ever done but exist?
She rocks back and forth while the serpents whisper again and again. The towel can only muffle so much.
§
Once upon a time, she was a young girl, a priestess in Athena’s temple who wanted nothing more than to wake each morning with the sun, to assist with the rituals, to drink from the sacred spring.
§
Medi tosses and turns beneath the sheets. In the darkness, she remembers the weight of an unwanted body against hers, a mouth pressed hard against lips fighting to scream, wrists straining beneath the iron grip of a hand as the ugliness, the guilt, spilled out of him and into her, marking her as sure as a brand.
Pariah. Anathema.
She chokes back a moan, pushing hard on the scarf wrapped tightly around her head, but even so, she can hear the serpents’ reminder of the how and the why. She sits up, gasping for air, drowning in waves so high, so violent, she’s sure they’ll pull her under.
On trembling legs, she staggers into the bathroom and stares at her reflection, her eyes filled with hate. She opens the medicine cabinet, and there on the shelf, a straight razor waits.
Will this make them happy?
She grips the handle tight, the blade glimmering in the overhead light, and touches it to the delicate skin of her wrist. The blue veins beneath her flesh point the way like tiny lines on a map leading to an exit ramp.
A serpent slips from beneath the scarf. Coils. Uncoils. Its tongue flickers cool against her temple.
Your fault, it whispers.
She presses the blade. A tiny wound opens. A single pearl of red runs free.
Your fault.
This is the only way to make them stop, isn’t it? She watches the red run across the pale of her skin, drop to the sink, and slide down the porcelain into the waiting mouth of the drain.
Her lip curls. Hasn’t she bled enough? Hasn’t she given up enough? She rips the scarf from her head, grabs a serpent, and forces its maw open. It hisses and writhes in her fist.
Your fault.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
She cuts out the serpent’s tongue. The pain is like a fire raging unchecked beneath her scalp, a thousand brutal words slamming against her skin. The blade slips from her hands, and she covers her mouth to hold in the scream.
The tongue sits in the basin, dark against the white. Like an exclamation point. Like an accusation.
She takes her hands away. Shrieks. Grabs another serpent. Grabs the blade.
“Not my fault.”
Another tongue falls. She reaches for another serpent.
“Not my fault.”
Again, the blade. Again, the pain.
“It was never my fault.”
One by one, the tongues fall, and when the last is gone, she drops the razor on the floor. The serpents are writhing, their hateful words now the sibilance of rage, of warning, of something else she cannot define, though it feels right and sure.
The pain slowly fades to a dull ache. Perhaps it will remain, perhaps time will turn it to memory, but it doesn’t matter. She stands tall. Smiles. Brushes her hair away from her face. Her eyes are full of tears—a sign of the pain or of triumph or perhaps a little of both. Her skin is still smooth; her face still a maiden’s. If the visage captures a man’s fancy, if it turns his heart to stone, so be it. She will not apologize for who, for what, she is anymore. It’s time to reveal the truth and rewrite the story, her story, the way it was meant to be written all along.
§
Once upon a time, she wasn’t the villain.
Dysphonia in
D Minor
I. FRAME
We sang our first bridge, a marvel of twisted cables and soaring towers, when Lucia’s hair was long and I thought love was a promise of always. It wasn’t our best or our strongest, but it was the first and had passion and hope as its support. Because we were foolish, we thought it would last forever, but first songs never lasted that long, no matter how much power the notes held in the making.
We knew our testing would change things, no matter what we said otherwise. Builders did best on their own, especially if their Voice was powerful. We always thought mine would be the strong one.
But we were young.
II. BEAM
“Where are they sending you?” I whispered in Lucia’s ear, the night before she was scheduled to leave on her first assignment.
The chirrup of bugs and the scent of white lilies wafted in through the open window. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, revealing a hint of the darkness beyond.
When Lucia rolled on her side, her hair fell over her shoulder in a riot of spiral curls. She took my hand, and our fingers intertwined. Her brow creased. “You know I can’t tell you.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Delanna, I know you’re upset because I’m going, but please, let it go. I can’t tell you.”
She started to rise from the bed. I put my hand on her arm.
“I’m not upset,” I whispered. “I’m just going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
I rolled over and grabbed my glass of wine. “Are you sure you don’t want some?”
She sighed. “You know I can’t do that, either.”
I should not have offered; I knew she couldn’t. No cigarettes, no alcohol, no acidic foods. And the musts: a tablespoon of honey three times a day, a scarf wrapped round her neck, no matte
r the temperature, and a willingness to stay silent.
“Maybe they should keep you in a gilded cage.” My words came out sharper than I intended. Warmth bloomed under my cheeks.
“That isn’t fair,” she said.
“Okay, I’m sorry.” I traced my fingertips along her cheekbones, her jaw, the tiny dimple in the center of her chin, the fullness of her lower lip. “Please, I’m sorry.”
She took my hands away and shook her head. “I have to go. I’ll come and see you as soon as I get back, and if I can call you while I’m there, I will.”
§
The old stories said the first Voice belonged to a girl who emerged from a whirlwind storm. The storm’s origin, land or water, depended on the teller of the tale. The girl’s name, the same. My mother said the how didn’t matter and some mysteries were best kept that way.
There were still buildings in the oldest section of the capitol city said to be her creations, towering things of arches and alcoves, rooms that swallowed up every sound, every heartbeat. When I was small, I tried to chip away a piece of stone from one—for what purpose, I can only guess—and my mother smacked my hand hard enough to leave a mark of her anger behind.
§
Lucia didn’t call.
I saw her creation on television—a new dam crafted of pale white stone streaked with grey in a country on the opposite side of the world. I knew it was hers; I could almost hear her notes, her perfection.
My chest ached, and my eyes burned with tears. I buried my face in a sweater she’d left behind and breathed in her scent, willing her to come home soon.
Until a few years ago, our builders never sang on foreign soil. Now, though, there were churches and museums and monuments across the world shaped by our Voices.
Some said our gift came from the goddesses below the surrounding sea, while others claimed a magic in the air. Still others said Voice was the reason our tiny country had never seen war upon its shores, that no one wanted to taint the beauty of our land or the gift in our blood with hatred and weaponry. Perhaps they were afraid of what other talents we might have hidden. Tourists came to see what we’d built but were never allowed to hear the making.
I wondered if they’d altered the rules; I wondered if they’d allowed anyone to hear Lucia’s Voice. A bitter taste filled my mouth, stronger than the taste of tears.
§
“I can feel it inside you,” she said to me one night when we were half-asleep in tangled sheets.
“What? My heart?” I said with a laugh.
“No, your Voice.” She placed one hand between my breasts. “It’s here.”
I laughed in the darkness. So did she. Then we kissed, and all thoughts of Voice disappeared into urgent whispers and the soft sounds of love.
The testing was only a few months away. We still thought we had forever.
§
A river ran along the back of my family’s expansive property. I don’t know when the tradition started, but a bridge sung by my mother stood not far from one crafted by my grandmother. Traces of older bridges, older attempts, lingered here and there as rubble on the shore, nothing more. Even the best Builders made mistakes sometimes. Especially in the beginning. Love tokens, my mother called them. Even the broken ones.
“You will understand when you’re older,” she’d said.
She was right.
§
A night after her testing and a month before mine, Lucia woke me in the early hours of the morning.
“Come with me,” she said.
We ran in our nightgowns to the river with our hands linked together, shivering in the chill air. We kissed on the shore, then she jumped in the water and swam across to the other side. She emerged from the river dripping wet, her hair plastered to her shoulders and back.
“Sing with me,” she called out.
When her Voice filled the night air, tears spilled down my cheeks. It was pure and true and beautiful. No mere song, but a symphony. After her testing, they told her she had the strongest Voice they’d heard in decades. Anyone who heard her sing would believe it.
It didn’t take long for her creation to take shape. I added my Voice to hers. Our notes mingled and danced and built. When it was finished, she walked back across the bridge, her feet whispering on the stone, and we held each other close.
“We’ll travel the world and build together, but this, this will always be ours,” she said.
I cupped her face in my hands and spoke against her mouth, her lips warm beneath mine. “Always.”
We made love on the shore with our bridge soaring overhead and stars in our eyes.
III. SPAN
Three months after the dam was unveiled, she showed up on my doorstep with flowers in her hand. I ran into her arms.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home? I would’ve made dinner. I would’ve—”
She pressed one hand to my lips.
I kissed her palm and spoke against her skin, my words muffled. “How long are you home?”
“Not very long,” she said.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
Later, in the dark, I said, “I saw the dam.”
“You know I can’t talk about that.”
I rolled my eyes. Such an absurd rule. Who would hear anyway? The walls, the pillows? I wouldn’t run out and tell the world; I thought Lucia knew me better than that. I didn’t understand the need for secrecy. We never had to keep secrets when we built at home, even those who built for the government.
“What’s it like?”
There was a long silence, then a smile playdanced across her face.
“It’s amazing, but it’s hard, harder than I thought it would be.”
“That’s it? Amazing? Hard?”
She shook her head. “What do you want me to say?”
“How does it feel, inside?”
“Like I’ve opened a door and all the notes come flooding out. It’s beautiful and scary and...” She gave a small shake of her head again. “It’s hard to describe it so you’d understand.”
“Because I don’t know anything about Voice.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“What?”
“It’s not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Not with your mouth, no. I don’t want to fight with you.”
She was gone again when I woke.
§
Our second bridge was delicate and fragile with carved waist-high railings. It was crooked in the middle. My fault. I’d had too much wine.
We loved it anyway.
§
Six months later, I woke up to find her asleep beside me. Her hair was cut close to her scalp. I traced the contours of her face until she woke.
“I miss your hair,” I said, “but I miss you more.”
I pretended not to notice that she didn’t say she missed me, too. I didn’t ask her about what she’d built, and she didn’t offer. It was better, safer, that way.
But we built another bridge before she left, a beautiful structure that gleamed silver-pale in the moonlight.
§
Testing wasn’t mandatory. Many people built for pleasure, not profit. There were no laws against building for personal use. My family was one of the oldest and wealthiest in the country, and neither my mother nor her mother chose to test, but my heart wanted a different path. I wanted to mean something. To matter.
Maybe I’d always wanted too much.
Afterward, with my chest heavy with failure, I went to her apartment. She knew the minute she saw my face. When my tears stopped, she wiped my face and kissed my forehead.
“They detected notes of discordance,” I said, my voice thick. “It makes my Voice unstable. Worthless.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into my hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She took my hand and led me to the river.
“Sing,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you c
an. No matter what they said.” She squeezed my hand hard. “And you know you can. You’ve built plenty of things before.”
I tried. I did. But my Voice emerged broken and pale. The stone crumbled. The girders warped. I put my head in my hands and wept again.
I didn’t understand. Had my Voice changed? Had the testing revealed a truth I’d never wanted to see? Was I broken?
§
Nine months went without a word. I caught sight of her on the news. Never her face or form, only what she’d built. A statue of another country’s goddess, a museum that would soon be filled with the treasures from an archaeological dig, and so many others. They were all so beautiful. So perfect.
I was proud of her, proud of her Voice, or so I told myself in the quiet hours after waking with the memory of her touch still on my skin.
Then I bumped into her at a coffee shop.
“Lucia?”
She turned slowly, too slowly, her face curiously devoid of emotion. She offered a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“When did you get back?” I asked.
“Yesterday, but I’m leaving early in the morning.”
I wiped the hurt from my face, but I knew she saw it.
“So soon?”
“Yes.”
The word came out sharp enough to sting.
I convinced her to come to my house. We made love. When she kissed me, her mouth was hard, and her fingers left tiny marks on my skin. A punishment, perhaps. But for what?
We said I love you; we didn’t say goodbye. But I tasted the truth in her lips, hidden beneath a cold chill.
In the morning, I found a new bridge across the river. It was beautiful, all shimmering cables and delicate scrollwork. I hated it on sight.
IV. ARCH
The news broke the story of a new prison in a country I’d never heard of, and when I recognized its shape, I turned off the television with a snarl. The Lucia I once knew would have refused.
And why didn’t she leave? Contracts, like hearts, could be broken. I waited for a call. A letter. Anything at all. I wanted to hear her say it was over. I deserved that much.
Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Page 12