Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 10 of 54

By dawn the crowd was back, doubled, packed shoulder to shoulder beneath a tall ice prism tower that caught the early light and threw it across her face in hard, bright shards. They had come for a song this time. She could feel it in how quiet they were. She slipped behind the frost arch at the stage's edge, out of their sight but not their hearing, and pulled the silver compass from her sleeve. The glowing needle spun, then steadied, pointing past the practice hall toward the ice chimes she had built weeks ago. She closed her eyes and listened for the notes the compass seemed to pull her toward. A small melody came — three rising chimes, then a drop. She hummed it once. Twice. It held. She stepped back through the arch with the tune still warm in her throat. No instruments. No backing. She sang it plain, the way she had spoken the night before, and let the chime-shape carry it. The crowd caught the rising notes by the second pass and hummed them back at her, low and together, until the prism tower seemed to ring. When she stopped, they did not. They kept the melody going without her, passing it across the square. She had a song again — and now they owned a piece of it too.