Chapter 23 #3
Heat rippled near her, like Reyna was using the tuning fork again, and the smith’s string melody shimmered along Cadenza’s skin.
You’ve got to want it.
Cadenza steeled herself. I do want it.
Heat billowed off Reyna as she strained against the in-between. She caught the first part of Drostan’s thought as the cave faded from her vision.
That’s impossible. How is she—
Reyna sniffed. Cadenza was the first friend she’d had that could appreciate both halves of her performance. And she needed help. Dude and his random table in a cave could wait.
Take me to Cadenza. She poured what she wanted into the tuning fork and concentrated on the message she needed to send.
You’ve got to want it.
Gripping the tuning fork with both hands, she willed it to soak up every last note of Cadenza’s determination to open the vault.
“Come on, Cadenza. Screw this ‘only a Spinner’ crap. We’ll bust this stupid box open together.”
The iron radiated heat. Cadenza’s resolve filled it, and it glowed like a piece in Reyna’s forge.
“Yaas, that’s my girl. Come on, get it.”
A sucking dragged on her middle like quicksand and the cave began to layer over the plain once more.
Reyna dug her heels in. “Oh, no you don’t.”
Sweat trickled down Canon’s brow, stung his eyes. Yearning ripped at him. Yearning to be that man of bounty and sun, but the truth of himself froze and sliced in his gut. It swallowed the yearning, ate it whole. He’d never be that man. Not on his own.
He wasn’t enough.
The power in the parade picture—he needed that first. Become that man, access that power, then he could be the man of bounty.
His breath exploded out of him in decision. He grabbed the newspaper.
The quicksand pull dropped away from Reyna all at once. She fell forward with a cry and shoved the tuning fork against the safe like she could push it straight through the glass.
“Open!” she commanded, releasing all of Cadenza’s pent up will.
A snick popped from one corner, and the front wall of the box swung open. Reyna whooped in triumph and snatched the oracles from the vault.
Cadenza’s voice floated across the plain. The aria was finished. Reyna had sixty seconds to drop the oracles off to Cyrus’s “wee friends” and get back to the stage for their duet.
Almost done. We got this.
Canon clutched the newspaper, breath heaving like he’d run a race.
Thomas lowered his eyes and sank into the chair, head in his hands.
A tickling sensation came from Canon’s toes, and he stared at his feet, frowning.
Sparks floated above his feet, and his shoes disappeared.
His bare feet followed, evaporating slowly before his eyes.
His calves peeled away, his knees. His legs were gone now, his hips.
His middle disintegrated out of existence, taking what he had thought was the truth with it.
Clarity showed him the truth for the lie it was.
Relief, warm as a summer day at the cabin, washed through him.
He had always been enough. Gratitude for the knowing of it, even if it meant his end, buoyed him as the shreds of his former self floated up to the chandelier, and he took his place as one of the small, winking lights on the tree roots.
Not fireflies, he realized. Failed candidates, here to give light to future hopefuls.
With his last conscious thought, he promised, I’ll give better light to the next one, that they might see.
The chandelier in the dining hall lit the guests’ champagne flutes, reflecting tiny winking stars.
Thomas couldn’t look at it.
The club members were just this side of buzzed, comfortably fed on high-end food and culture. He clasped his hands behind him and backed into a corner at the rear of the room.
Wouldn’t do for his guests to see him shaking.
On stage, Cadenza and Reyna flowed through The Flower Duet, the last number of the evening, and his favorite. He congratulated himself on bringing these two voices together, they complemented each other beautifully.
Just like the Sight he’d gifted Canon could have complemented the young man, led him in time to take Thomas’s place as Seer. He sighed, tired to his bones, and blinked against the stinging in his eyes.
How many ages had he plodded through the world unknown and unrecognized for his true self, caring only for his revenge?
Then these young people burst into his life and had discovered, if not all, more than anyone had since he’d run from his duty to find the Crown.
All three of them bore such potential and yet none of them truly knew themselves—Cadenza, with the strongest connection to the music he’d seen since his own Harriet, Reyna gifting light and warmth wherever she went, and Canon, with so much drive.
And now Reyna’s heat and Cadenza’s song had plundered his vault and Canon—
Thomas swallowed. Canon had chosen wrong.
No doubt one of the Norroways was outside to ferry away their prize, but Thomas couldn’t bring himself to care about the oracles.
Harriet was killed before they ever had children. These young ones had begun to fill that gap. And now they had torn it wide open.