Chapter Five
She dreamed of soaring through the sky on Brann's back. Although Elise didn't know what his form looked like, she pictured a huge red drake, the same red as his beard flapping enormous wings. She imagined clutching at the joints of his shoulders, yet instead of flying over some vibrant world, they flew through the dark tunnels of the caves. Canaries trilled their song, and candles sputtered as Brann flew past them. The tunnel gradually grew smaller, but so did they, shrinking until they slipped through a gap the size of a pinhole.
Inside the pinhole, they saw black and bone and twitching gray. They flew and flew, each wing flap sending out a cloud of pink dust from Brann and Elise. The dust covered the gray and turned it flesh-colored. They continued coloring the black and gray until they burst out of a wyrm's mouth, and the wyrm started singing as well.
Waking up, Elise rubbed her eyes, wondering what on earth she had a dream like that for. She sang for Tarken again, and she noticed the calming effect it had on him. Was it her voice that calmed him, or was it the magic Brann claimed she had?
It left her strangely cold, because if her singing was not the result of years of practise, but just something she inherited because of magic, then her whole life mustn’t have been real. Whatever talent she believed she possessed amounted to nothing. It was fake.
However... the songs I sang to energize myself, they really worked. I gained energy. The songs of sadness. I really made people sad. I can influence moods – magic or not. But what use is that, really?
She stared at the marks in the room, thinking about her friend. Wondering how Isera might have felt when she first discovered her magic. Wondering how fear must have consumed her, knowing that everyone around would seek to execute her if they found out.
Maybe some of these burns were accidents. A first-time mage panicking when something shot out of her fingers. But this – and Elise pressed her fingers against where her friend had carved her name – this was deliberate. There were other writings, too, but Elise didn’t understand them. She’d never been taught to read – she only knew Isera’s name and her own.
Elise didn’t mind the singing having something extra to it when she considered it longer, even though some kind of guilt teased into her that she wasn't genuine, not really. Whilst others sang from years of practise, Elise sang because she cheated.
Her ability wasn't fair.
Didn't stop her from using it, though. Didn't make sense to refuse an advantage, just because she knew where it came from.
When no one looked her way one morning, she left the premises without being challenged by the wyrm guards. Either they didn't notice her, or saw her as a favored pet to be left alone. Either way, it enabled Elise to venture all the way to the mining village.
She stared at the decrepit mud huts, the worn-down beer hall, and grubby little children under the age of five playing around the premises. Somehow, it didn’t feel like home at all. Was it ever her home?
Speaking of home... she walked down a pebbled “street” and passed what used to be where she slept, and already saw the evidence of someone else living there. Of course, she had been away for quite some time, but seeing this detached Elise further. She saw the screwed up stems of dreamleaves as well. The new occupant liked to use hallucinogens to escape the cruel reality of his or her own life. She almost smelled the strong, ash-like odor of the leaves from within. She saw scattered, ragged clothes, and a small patch with shoots sticking out of the soil – probably trying to grow their own food... or more dreamleaf.
She detected a faint whiff of burnt wheat from the windowsill, where stubbed-out filters lay. The spot where Elise once etched in her name by the windowsill had been scratched out.
I let Isera visit me here. She never said anything about how horrible it was, compared to where she came from.
Maybe Elise never knew what home was. She didn’t bother approaching the mines, in case the wyrms there made her work. Nobody there she wanted to speak to anyway.
How like a foreign world it all was. The darkness of the mines, the pervading lungdust that seeped into her body – all of it drifted away from her, untouchable.
I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in the mansion, either. A breeze ruffled past, and she shivered. She made her way back to the mansion, again uncontested by the guards. The dark suffocation of the mines pulled upon her – again the canaries, yellow and forlorn in their cages. Again the sweating, bruised humans slamming their pickaxes into rock, and wheelbarrows with chunks of diamond in them if anyone struck lucky. Not to mention the humiliating searches after each shift, just in case someone tried to sneak away with a tiny diamond.
Some managed all the same. And used those diamonds to trade with passing travelers who likely ripped them off in every possible way, since no one truly knew the value of what they mined. Not even Elise.
Some of the servants looked at her as she passed, and a chill went through her heart. Any one of them could be assassins like that cook, unwitting or deliberate. Any one of them who developed a dislike to her might find an excuse to poison or attack her in a quiet corridor. She went into her room and curled up with Ratty, listless, not knowing what she wanted to do. Even the work in the mines before had been a distraction of sorts. She was so busy working that she didn’t need to worry so much about doing anything.
The lethargy bit into her. Wouldn't it be nice just to not do anything? Wouldn't it be just great?
All this striving for something, this surviving... it just got so exhausting.
She didn't want to keep it up. And what use for a magic that allowed her to sing well if that was all it did? Singing couldn't change the world. People suffered anyway. Didn't matter what happened.
Presently, she heard a knock on the door. Leaving Ratty upon the pillow, she went and answered, to see Brann standing outside. She took in his purposeful stance, the confidence in his body. He took in her ragged, disheveled appearance. Likely she smelled as well, since she hadn't fully washed for almost two days, always finding something else to distract her.
I should have a bath. Now.
“Hello.”
“Hi.”
“You look like you're in need of some tough love. I’m going to conduct another training session shortly if you want to join. Speaking of which, you know, I have a big fight tomorrow. One that might get me into bigger leagues if I win.” He grinned proudly, but when his announcement failed to lift her mood, he hesitated, the smile dying on his lips. “Elise? What’s wrong?”
Many things wrong bubbled into her head, but only one came out. “I’m just tired. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Ah. May I come in?”
Elise nodded, and he stepped past, his eyes locked on Ratty, who looked a lot cleaner than from the hut. Elise washed Ratty thoroughly within a few days of moving, wanting him to smell as fresh as the linen she lay in.
“I see you’re taking good care of your little toy. Is it helping you?”
“A little. Better than without.” Elise sighed, examining the drake, wondering what he meant to her. Someone who knew who she was, who didn’t want to see her suffer under the wyrms. A person who knew and helped Isera. A person who didn’t say anything about it for so long. Someone kind, but who fought, meaning there was some violence in his heart.
Who was he? What was the song in his soul? Everyone had a song specific to them.
“You must be scared,” he eventually said, his gray eyes grave. He scratched at his blond hair. “And you shouldn't be. I’m sorry for that.”
“Oh, I’m always scared. Every day could be the last,” Elise replied flatly. “It just seems so pointless at times. I don’t see how the humans in the mines can experience any better. I don’t see how any humans can be better. Even here, where we’re dressed cleaner and eat healthier, it’s still like a game. How do we avoid that wyrm? How can we aggravate them the least? How do we get through the day without wanting to end it all?”
Brann sucked at his teeth, eyebrows rising. The scar on the left side of his jaw pinched in slightly. A small spike of fear went through Elise. She’d told him too much. Far too much. He didn't need to know the inner workings of her mind.
Then again, he already knew too much, even without her saying anything. She went to scoop up Ratty as a comforter, just needing something to hold. She clutched Ratty’s frayed limb in her right hand.
“That’s because the world is broken,” Brann said, startling Elise. “Even the wyrms know somewhere that it’s true. They know they have something missing. Don’t you think it’s odd just how hateful they are all the time?”
Elise didn’t, honestly. She just thought they were born in hate, soaked themselves in it and grew up spreading such emotions around, so she said nothing.
Brann continued with his explanation. “Humans, for all their miseries, have a balance of emotions at least. Any of them can be noble if you give them the right circumstances. It’s the same with drakes. But with wyrms, Elise, their emotions are out of balance. They hate too easily. They always go to the extreme end of whatever they're feeling. And they don’t really know how to love. Even Karris – who you say loves her father – doesn’t, really. She loves attention. And her father – he loves status, craves it, which is why he has me around and you around. We are his meal tickets.” He paced in her room, hands clasped behind his back. The words stirred curiosity, helping to tug Elise out of her stupor. “That’s the thing, Elise. They’re missing something. Something in the soul.” He took one hand to tap his chest. He stared at her expectantly. Waiting to see if she gleaned understanding from his insight.
“I don’t think missing something is a valid excuse to keep treating people like this,” Elise said.
“No. Perhaps not. People will be cruel regardless.” Brann nodded. “But I do think it’s too extreme with the wyrms. I can quite honestly say I’ve never met one that I’ve liked much at all. I can tolerate some, though. Obviously.”
Elise snorted at this. She considered his words, appreciating the distraction they provided from her chaotic thoughts, the nagging despair eating away inside her. Distractions were good. And for whatever reason, lyrics came harder to her today. Perhaps something to do with her mood. Perhaps something to do with her current lack of imagination.
“Is there even something like a soul? Or is that a lie we tell ourselves to make us sleep better at night?”
“There is.” Brann stopped pacing. His eyes widened, indignant from the question. One hand seemed to reach for her, maybe to shake some sense into her bones. “Of course there is. You should know better than anyone, because your music touches it. That's not just emotions you're stirring. It's something deeper.”
Elise’s initial impulse was to sincerely doubt it, and she even built up the rejection in her lungs before she hesitated, wiping away all her presumptions. Forcing herself into a state of neither belief nor disbelief. “Maybe.”
“Sing,” he said. “Sing the song that’s in your heart right now. I’ll prove it.”
Again, the impulse to do something idiotic, like a nonsense song, bubbled into her. She didn't have any music in her right now. Nothing came to her.
That wasn't entirely true, was it? Something scratched there. Waiting to be heard. Fighting past all the fog in her mind that made everything hard to access.
I’m scared, she realized. Scared he’s right. I’m trying to deflect – to think of something else. But why am I so scared? It doesn't even make sense.
She took deep breaths. This time, she didn’t bother with words. She just sang the tune that came easiest to her. This one didn’t have words. It changed depending on her mood. It vibrated out, compressing her lungs, tingling her blood. It made her heart pump faster, and the hairs upon her skin shoot upwards.
Yes. The reason to sing. It existed in the power of this voice, of the music in her soul.
She didn’t look at Brann for a few moments, but when she finally glanced towards him, she saw his face had crumpled into something raw and painful. Alarmed, she stopped.
“Brann?” He didn't respond at first. She inquired again, louder.
He reacted by patting his chest again, where the heart was. “It hurt. Your song hurt.”
Hurt? He went and sat on her bed, slightly dazed, and cradled his head in his hands. The unexpected emotional outburst from him humbled her, made her wonder. She doubted this to be a trick for him. No benefit in lying about this.
“It’s so sad. You see? You understand? Normal music makes you sad and happy, sure. But your kind of music influences something deeper. It digs so hard that we don't know how to handle it.” He gave her a wry smile. Still a little out of it.
Elise felt like a ghost drifting out of her body, trying to deal with the understanding Brann gave her. He was so pale, drained, like someone had siphoned all the blood from his face. “Let me describe to you clearer what it's like. I feel as if someone’s stabbed a dagger into my heart, and now I’m left to deal with the aftermath. I feel like there’s no light, and it would be better if I just died.”
Elise’s entire body turned to ice. That came disturbingly close to the same message she allowed to wander around in her brain.
Brann crinkled one corner of his mouth. They were so close, both sitting on the bed. How short was the distance? Eight inches? Nine? “So, Elise, as much as I admire your singing, I have a favor to ask. Can you hum a happier tune? Please?”
Still encased in that mental block of ice, Elise complied, humming a short, jaunty tune which seemed to return color into Brann’s cheeks. Seeing the transformation added extra dimensions of realization, extra weight to her mind.
Definitely not tricking her, then.
He gulped greedy breaths, before letting out a chuckle. “Your song is a weapon. I think you could drive people to such sadness that they want to die. Several of that kind of tune in succession might do it.” He reached over to grasp her hand, and it emanated heat in hers. It helped warm the shock coursing through her body. “But I also think you might be able to fix what is broken. Just as you can pull us down, you can fire us up. You can build us up. And I think that’s what you need to try with Tarken. He’s changing, Elise. You might not realize it, but he’s honestly changing.”
Elise didn’t dare say anything.
“You’re so precious…” he whispered, before leaning over to kiss her upon the forehead. Tender and sweet, his free hand wrapped around her scalp. “And you must never waste that strength inside you.” He rested his lips against her forehead. Such a foreign sensation against her skin. Now the heat traveled through her body, leaving a small fever there. “If you feel unsafe at any point, seek me out. I’ll do what I can.”
After a long time, Elise nodded. Her cheeks burned as hot as lit coals right now. Her heart beat so fast. Her legs trembled. She probably couldn't manage any sort of standing up. Not without everything giving way beneath her. When his lips withdrew contact, she still felt the essence of it upon her forehead, like his lips had branded a mark there. In a short, wild moment, she wanted to feel those lips pressed on her again. To have that mark against her mouth, to stay there forever. To have those hands not on her scalp and other palm, but around her body, touching her skin.
Surely with the coals burning in her cheeks, Brann would notice. Surely she stood out like a light in the darkness.
But also... something about the softness of that touch baffled her. It caused something to squeeze painfully inside, as if her intestines now twisted themselves into knots.
What’s happening to me?
Brann laughed softly. “I see you’re having troubles of your own with processing.”
“I…” Tears leapt into her eyes, and his amusement turned into alarm. He didn't understand, of course, what set her off. Neither did she.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“I…” An inkling of knowledge reached inside. “I’ve never been touched like that before.”
A little of that deep sadness entered his eyes again. “Oh. Oh, you poor thing.” He took her into his arms again, this time squashing her against his chest, now rubbing her hair, ruffling up the blonde strands into a mess. “I’m so sorry. I should have realized. Being all alone in that little hut, of course you haven't...”
It was easy to cry when someone hurt her physically or mentally. Or to hold all of it back, instead letting herself boil with resentment.
But when someone showed her kindness, for some reason it increased the pain – a different kind of throbbing than the others.
Because in that moment, she realized what she was missing. What she should have had, but never received, never cherished. And that someone, without any obligation on their end, gave it to her.
Simple and complicated at the same time. Unable to handle it, Elise started bawling into his chest, balling up her fingers. Sobs ripped apart her lungs and clogged her throat.
Brann kept murmuring to her. This big, strong drake who won direct fights with superb skill and technical prowess, with that huge scar raking through his chin, splitting the crimson hair that coated his face – comforting her. Of all people. Or perhaps he was exactly the person to do it. Somehow, he had treasured that kindness in his heart, wrapping it in a safe layer of a rough and beaten exterior. Someone who had obviously experienced the bad chunks of life.
But cared all the same.
“You’re going to get my shirt very, very wet,” Brann observed, still stroking her hair. She let out a choking laugh.
They eventually broke apart with smiles.
“I should go to my training now,” he said, lifting a finger to dab away one stray tear just trickling out the corner of her eye. “Take your time to feel a little better, then come. Wouldn’t want to miss you.”
She leaned ever so slightly into his touch, before nodding. Swallowing the last of the sadness.
“Sorry about the shirt.”
“Eh,” he said. “I’ll be taking it off anyway.”
She grinned. Best not to let that visual overpower the others...