Lydia the Siren's Arc

Chapter 5 of 37

Lydia sat by the pond with her belly full of fish. Her song still hung faint in the stone. She had sung the knight's call for hours, and now she rested. She leaned back against cool rock and let her eyes close. His name had traveled with the merchants she fed on. Gregorio. They spoke it like a prayer. She remembered the first time she saw him. A year past, he had camped near the road below her pass. A small fire burned. A shield leaned against his tent, dented from old fights. She had crept close in the dark to study him. Sharp face. Dark hair pushed by the wind. He sat alone and did not fear the woods around him. Then he raised an ocarina to his lips. It was carved from pale bone, worn smooth by years of use. The holes gaped like empty eyes. He played a low, aching tune into the fire. Lydia had lured a hundred men with her own voice. No sound had ever pulled her the way that one did. She stood in the trees and could not move. A beast came for the light. It dropped from the sky on wide red wings, a large dragon. membrane stretched thin, talons out. Lydia knew fear then. She wanted to run. But Gregorio set the ocarina down without hurry. He rose, drew his blade, and met the thing head on. Steel bit through the wing. He cut it down and stood over the body, breathing hard, blood on his armor. Then he sat again and finished his song. That was when she wanted him. Not as food. Not as sustenance, the way the trader and the shepherd had been. She wanted the man who could play like that and kill like that in the same breath. She wanted to stand beside that fire and be part of what he was. For a year she had waited. She had cleared her cavern of rot and stink and every dead thing so her call would reach him clean. Lydia opened her eyes. The memory left her hungry in a new way .