Nara Thoss's Arc

Chapter 2 of 1

Nara could not sing in her chamber again. The last time, the thing behind her voice had pressed at the edges of its cage. Three artists still sat drooling on her floor. If she tried to study the song here, the creature would break loose among them. She needed a place with thick walls and no ears to steal. She found Cornelius at the door, already leaving. He was the tone-deaf beggar who had heard the truth when no one else could. He alone could tell her what the song really did. "Wait," she said. "I know a place. A mansion of mushroom and stone, far from any town. The walls are thick. No one lives there to drown." Cornelius chewed his bread. "And you want me to come stand next to the biting thing." "I need you to listen," she said. "You're the only one who can." He sighed and shouldered his star-lined satchel. "Your coin." They climbed to the tall mushroom house. Its purple cap spread over spires of lime-green light. Gold pillars framed the door. Inside, one round room held nothing but bare stone. Nara shut the heavy door. No artists. No poets. Just the two of them. "Here I can let it out a little," she said. "Just a little. And you tell me what you see." Cornelius backed to the wall. "Little. You said little." Nara opened her mouth. She did not sing the whole song. She sang one low note and held the cage half-open. The air thickened. Light bent around her teeth. "What do you hear?" she asked between breaths. "Snapping," Cornelius said. His voice shook. "A flower with a dragon's head. Horns. It's leaning out. It likes the quiet room. There's no one here to chew but us." Nara understood too late. The silence she wanted was the thing's hunger. With no crowd to entrance, the creature turned its full weight on her. The note swelled past her control. Stone dust shook from the walls. "Shut it!" Cornelius shouted. Nara clamped her jaw. She swallowed the note down hard. The light snapped back behind her teeth. She fell to her knees, gasping. The room went still. Cornelius slid down the wall, white-faced. "That thing wants an audience," he said slowly. "It don't hide to be left alone. It hides to be fed. Empty room nearly killed you. It needs the crowd, miss. It uses them." Nara pressed a hand to her throat. She had found her safe place, and the safe place had betrayed her. The creature was not quietest in solitude. It was strongest. "Then I learned something," she said. "It feeds on listeners. It needs the trance to grow." Cornelius stood and gripped his satchel. "You learned it near ate you." Nara looked at the shaking walls. To study the song, she could not hide it away. She would have to study it in front of a crowd, and risk every ear in the room.