Lydia the Siren's Arc

Chapter 1 of 37

Lydia wanted a knight. Not this trader. She wanted the iron-clad one the whole kingdom praised, the beast-slayer ready to lay down his sword. She wanted his footsteps in her cavern forever. Instead she had Alph. She pressed her back to the cold stone and listened to him crash through her home. He was the trader she had lured three days ago. His blood had smelled wrong the moment he stepped inside, sour and rotten, so she left him. But he never left her. "Hello?" Alph shouted again. His staff banged rock. "The voice! I heard the voice! Where's the way out?" Lydia made her call. She shaped it low and sweet through the echo, aiming it toward the pass mouth, hoping to catch a fresh traveler. But Alph's clatter swallowed it. Her sound broke apart against his noise. No one outside would ever hear her over him. She stepped from the dark. "You're going the wrong way," she said. Her voice was silk. "The exit is past the deep pit. Follow the left wall." Alph squinted at her, then grinned like a child. "You're real! You'll help me?" "Of course." She smiled her mischievous smile. The left wall led straight to the drop. He walked right past it. He tripped over a loose rock, cursed, and turned back the way he came. Lydia's jaw tightened. She tried again. She rolled a smooth stone toward the pit's lip and made it sing, a lure any traveler would chase. Alph chased a dripping sound instead and sat down to drink from a puddle. "Fool," she whispered. He heard nothing. He belched and stood. For two more days it went like this. She laid every trap she knew. Alph missed each one by pure stupidity. His banging never stopped. Her call never carried. Every hour, another traveler passed the mouth of Rou-Do Cavern Pass and heard only a muffled mess. She lost them all. Then luck turned. Alph wandered near the pit again, chasing an echo she hadn't even made. His boot found the edge. He yelped and dropped, catching the lip with both hands. His staff clattered into the black below. "Help me!" He kicked at the stone. "I can't hold! Please!" Lydia knelt above him. His rotten blood filled her nose. She looked at his fingers, white and slipping. She could pull him up. She could keep trying to fix him, keep failing, keep losing every knight who passed while he screamed. Or she could have her cavern back. "You never should have stayed," she said softly. "What? I can't—" His grip tore loose. He fell without knowing her face was the last thing he saw. The pit took him. Silence returned to the stone. Lydia stood and breathed the clean, cold air. She smoothed her hair and tested her voice against the walls. It rang far and pure now, out past the mouth, into the pass. Somewhere a knight was leaving his sword behind. She began to sing for him.