Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 13 of 54

She walked out from the workshop with the bottle in her sleeve and the journal under her arm. The open air pulled at her song. She needed a place that would hold it back. She crossed the snow until she found a slit in a blue hill — a cave mouth glowing soft inside. She stepped in. The thick frozen walls drank her footsteps. She sang one note, then four. The ice held the sound close and gave it back clean. No echo escaped the mouth. She set the journal on a flat ledge and opened it to the four marks. She took a small wooden case from her pack — icy blue, silver-hinged — and set it open beside the journal. She sang the line into it, closed the lid, and opened it again. The notes lived there now, safe between two shells of ice and wood. She sang louder. The cave kept her secret. She rehearsed the full shape — soft, held, loud — until her throat was sure. When she stepped back into the wind, the song sat ready in her chest and in the box. The broadcast stage would not catch her bare. She had a private room of ice, and a song that would not crack.