Lydia the Siren's Arc

Chapter 36 of 37

They walked until dark. Gregorio picked a flat spot and built a small fire. He raised his tent, set his shield against a log, and leaned his spear within reach. Then he spread his bedroll on the far side of the fire, as far from Lydia as the clearing allowed. He lay down with his back to her and said nothing. Lydia sat by the flames. The distance stung more than she expected. She had killed his kind. She had lured his friend. Still, she wanted him to look at her once without his hand near his sword. "Gregorio." He did not move. "I need to tell you why I hunted you." "Sleep." "I heard you play once. A year ago. You sat by a fire like this and played a bone flute. A dragon came and you killed it, then you played again as if nothing happened." She pulled her knees close. "That sound reached my cave. I had never wanted a person before. Only prey. But I wanted you. I wanted to sit near that music and never leave." Gregorio rolled over. His face was hard in the firelight. "A beast wanted me," he said. "You built a trap out of my own song. You wore a woman's face to steal me." His mouth twisted. "That is the foulest thing you have told me yet." "I know how it sounds." "You do not." He turned his back again. "Don't speak of my music." Lydia let the silence take the camp. She had reached for him and he had shut every door. She lay down on the bare ground and stared at the fire until it dropped to coals. This was her answer. He would travel with her, but he would never soften. She had traded her wings for a hunt beside a man who hated her. She closed her eyes. Then a note drifted across the coals. Lydia opened her eyes. Gregorio sat up, his back still to her. He held the bone ocarina to his lips. The smooth curves caught the firelight. He played low and slow, the same haunting line she had chased for a year. His fingers moved over the hollow holes without thought, the way a man breathes. He was not playing for her. She understood that. He played to settle himself, the way he always had. But the sound still reached her across the fire, and it still pulled at something under her ribs. Lydia lay very still. Her human ears heard every note. She could not sing it back. She could not answer with any lure. She could only listen, the way any woman listens, wanting and unable to take. The song ended. Gregorio lowered the ocarina and lay down without a word.