Chapter 5 #4
It wasn’t a shout, yet Trisha winced at the cracking power in his voice.
A shudder traveled across the space. People paused, blinking away their stupor, and looked around.
Feet shuffled and wood groaned under their weight.
Everyone avoided looking up, cups at their mouths, their cheeks still flushed.
The hum of mutters and embarrassed coughs echoed off the walls.
Trisha shot a glare at Blainor. How did he do it? Commanded them all like that, and even broke the lingering effects of her song? In his travel-worn woolen tunic, he watched the room, his expression dark. A twinge of annoyance and something uglier nipped at her. She raised her chin.
“Bard an Tilia.” Blainor didn’t even have to raise his voice. “You’ve made your mark.” Although his words remained even, an edge of steel rang underneath them. “I believe the victor is clear, Chief Lichtal.”
Blinking away his stupor, Orin leaned back in his chair.
His jaw tightened before he nodded as much in obligation as in surrender.
“Yes, Warlord,” he rumbled. A flicker of dread tensed his face before he inclined his neck.
Orin’s gruff words sounded like a toll. “The Warlord has chosen Trisha an Tilia as his bard. May her song never die.”
She made a bow, with less flourish and much more haste.
Chin held high, she strode back to her place while everyone tracked her path.
Magic still hummed, gleeful and eager to fly again, but Trisha kept it tightly contained.
She suppressed a shiver, remembering the expression on Orin’s face and the way he had reached out to her.
In muted, wary silence, Trisha’s table companions gave her space. She cursed her pride. It wasn’t respect that she caught in their eyes, but fear.
Gradually, the atmosphere relaxed. Voices arose, laughter and jokes resumed.
But even those sounds wouldn’t dispel the undercurrent beneath.
It kindled her earlier unease. Trisha couldn’t pinpoint what unnerved her: the hungry look, sudden movements, hands twitching almost instinctually? Or, the stillness that followed?
They glanced toward the high table and their Warlord, lowering their heads.
Trisha saw it all, but she didn’t understand what it meant.
With a grumbled apology to her companions, she sought solace behind the shadows of a wooden pillar. Within the light of a flaming iron cresset, she slipped her instrument into its case and started.
Bran Jovell had drawn up beside her. Resentment darkened his brow. He ogled the leather case in Trisha’s hands. A flash of hunger before he schooled his features. “Bard an Tilia. Well played.”
“Th-thank you, Minstrel Jovell,” she stuttered.
His strong jaw jutted, face twisted into a scowl. “But it takes more than one song to know what it means to be the Warlord’s Bard.”
“Excuse me?”
“You may have won here at Lichtal’s hall, but don’t think your position is safe.” A bitter curve bent his lips. “The Wolfbachs will tear you apart,” he said in a pitying tone. “A southern bard? What was my lo—the Warlord thinking?”
Her anger blazed like the fire in the cresset next to them. “If you’re unsatisfied with the outcome, I suggest complaining to the man himself.” She nodded toward Blainor. “Maybe this time he’ll take you in?”
“Don’t think that you’re the only token he’s dragged from the south,” he sneered. “A piece of advice, Bard an Tilia. Next time, be mindful of what you choose to play.”
Without another word, he made a clipped bow and spun around.
Trisha looked after the retreating figure, unable to decide between irritation and pure incredulity. Still, something deeper in Bran’s words stoked a nagging feeling she couldn’t push away. The idea that her performance had somehow endangered her.
Smells of grease and yeast on the laden tables laced the thick smoke. Her eyes itched.
At the room’s center, Blainor sat, in control of everything. Domineering.
Some unease from the whole ordeal lingered. She’d won, had she not? Bran’s snide comments had confirmed it, so why did it feel so wrong?
Unable to tolerate the weight of this unbearable tension, she fled to the courtyard.
The wind brushed her cheeks, cooling remnants of the anxiety her song had left behind.
The breeze carried smoldering fumes and manure, but beneath it whispered the sweetness of distant flowers.
Crickets chirped, and a mosquito wailed.
A slap at her neck finished the pestering insect.
The dry dirt crunched, and Trisha wiped her eyes.
Damn the Warlord. Hadn’t he wanted her to prove her worth to his dismissive chief and Orin’s proud bard?
She’d done just that, and yet it felt like she’d been the one to lose.
Bran’s ominous words echoed in her ears, the way Orin had watched just before declaring her the winner. She chewed her lip hard enough to hurt.
The few guards on station watched her idle meandering, dispassionate but wary, holding their spears.
Would they try to stop her if she left the keep?
She toyed with the thought before abandoning it.
Where would she go? Back south, to Normark?
No, she’d chosen this path, and she’d see it to the end.
She’d use this opportunity to find her parents.
The restless energy drove her to the stables, where Dapple rested. He nuzzled her shoulder. Oats. Real food, at last. His thoughts were smug and a bit accusing, too.
“I’m glad, my boy,” Trisha whispered, petting his head. At least someone was content with their present predicament.
From the stables, she wandered toward the closed front gate, and then back to the corner where worn wooden poles separated an enclosed area—a fencing yard, she guessed. By then, the rhythm of her steps had chilled her temper. The burn of her magic remained only a hum in her bones.
The long northern day drew to an end, the sky darkening to violet and ink, but a faint glow lit the horizon. Trisha rested her elbows on the wooden fence, the planks chipped over the years of rain and sun and children vaulting over it.
Dark granite stood around her, watching, silent and unyielding. The stone hummed with the bedrock, the land echoing under her feet like an enormous drum.
She breathed, releasing her hold on her magic. The soldiers’ march, its staccato beat, wound into the same long sound. The depth of it sent her heart ringing with a song she almost remembered whole.
Eichlandt. She’d been here before, this land.
Trisha would see through this charade to find them. Blainor had said that she could leave. A title didn’t mean anything different.
She had a sudden image of his still form while a storm grew beneath his gaze.
Trisha’s shoulders fell. She’d better return, lest her absence be noticed and gossiped upon.
A faint scoff left her. If Trisha had been smart, she would’ve asked Blainor to draw her a contract.
Instead, it felt like she was plunging into the unknown headfirst. Turning, she took a step and froze.
A wail broke through the night. It warbled low, plunging even lower, before rising to a near-heartbreaking cry. Trisha’s face lifted. Its echo stirred the evening. The sound repeated, the mournfulness of the bird’s song tugging at her heart. She closed her eyes.
The birdsong disturbed a memory. No, not even that. A feeling. She swallowed, clutching her hands to her chest. A faded image of a tree against the pale sky flashed before her eyes. A smell of something too deep to recall ached in her marrow. A vague impression, like a dream forgotten.
The wind’s whisper threaded the bird’s song. The world stilled. That distant impression became more solid. Colors creeping from the edges. Shapes. A tree before a house, still half-formless. The gnawing in her heart grew.
A smooth voice shattered the tranquility, “It’s a moorscry.”
The image crumbled, vanishing like dust in the wind. Trisha’s arms fell by her sides.
Blainor stood not far away. The evening’s hues cloaked him, but even they failed to hide his height or diminish the impact of his broad-shouldered presence. He stepped closer. “The bird, that is.”
“Moorscry,” she tested the name, quietly shaken. Quickly, she clamped her lips shut, holding back that she’d recognized the sound. It would invite questions she wasn’t willing to answer—not to him anyway.
A low chuckle sounded as he neared. “I much prefer my Starling. Moorscry have a certain reputation.” Reaching her side, he placed a hand on the rough gate plank and lifted his face as if to listen.
A cedar note carried to her nose. The echo of her song, its hollow desire, flickered like a flame. Just a lingering aftereffect of her magic, she told herself. “What kind?”
Blainor glanced down at her. “Sorrow.”
She waited, and he, recognizing the question in her gesture or expression, turned toward her.
“To some, hearing its sound heralds deep grief. Loss. Death,” he said.
A tremor of unspoken pain wove through the words before he fell silent.
Then, he let out a soft scoff. “My people fear it for its song.”
“But you don’t?”
“Most things surviving the moors are something to be feared. Just not because of their voice.” He added with a faint smile, “Unless they’re birds from the south.”
“I won’t apologize for my song,” she said sharply, cringing at her defensive tone. “I played just as well as that arrogant bard, Bran.”
“I’m not here to chastise you.” The Warlord’s tone carried an edge of satisfaction. “Orin challenged both you and me. He wanted a battle of bards and got exactly what he deserved.”
“I thought I’d already agreed to play in your home. Why all that pomp?”
“It’s… an old tradition. Sometimes that’s the only way to ensure my people obey. You’ve now officially claimed your title. Congratulations, Trisha.”
“It won’t change anything we agreed to back at Isdet, will it? You won’t hold me just because of some silly position, right?”