Lydia the Siren's Arc

Chapter 15 of 37

Lydia lay still under the cedar blanket and listened. Her body ached from the fight and the long climb. Across the room, the young knight stirred on the floor. She had learned his name in her half-sleep. Bastion. He had carried her here, given her his bed, and never once guessed what she was. She kept her eyes shut and her breathing slow, and she waited to see what a man like this did when he thought no one watched. Bastion rose. He stretched, quiet, careful not to wake her. Then he began to hum. The sound reached her before she understood it. Low, warm, an old tune with no words. It filled the cabin the way her own song filled the stone passage. Lydia had spent a year hunting a knight for a melody he played on an ocarina. She had never once been sung to. Her eyes almost opened. She caught herself and held them shut, but her chest tightened around the sound. She was the one who lured. Now something pulled at her, and she had not chosen it. She risked a look through her lashes. The cabin was warm and plain. Someone had painted stars across the wooden ceiling, small and careful, so a person on their back could see a night sky indoors. Bastion moved to the hearth, still humming, and set a pan on the coals. Bacon hissed. Eggs cracked against the pan's edge. The smell reached the bed and Lydia's stomach clenched. Her hunger was old and sharp, the kind that fed on travelers. This was different. This made her mouth water like a woman's, not a siren's. "You're awake," Bastion said. He did not turn around. "You breathe different when you sleep." She opened her eyes fully. "I didn't want to trouble you." "No trouble." He lifted the pan off the coals. He came to the bed with a plate and a fork. He saw her try to sit and fail, her arms shaking under her weight. Without a word he sat on the edge of the bed. He cut a small piece and held the fork to her mouth. Lydia hesitated. She ate. The food was better than anything she remembered. Salt and warmth and care all at once. She smiled at him, weak and real, and the smile surprised her more than him. She had come to this pass to take a knight and keep him. She had planned a song and a horn and a trap. She had not planned this. Bastion fed her slowly, one small bite at a time, because she could hardly move. He hummed between them. Lydia watched his face and felt her whole plan shift under her. She still wanted a knight forever. But the knight she wanted had changed, and she no longer needed a song to hold him.