Chapter 22 #2
“What is it?” she asked, lifting her head to the skies.
“Mortal Heart’s Whisper, left behind by one of the Nameless Ones.”
Trisha stared at the faint lights. She couldn’t remember hearing its name before. “It doesn’t carry songs like the others you mentioned, does it?”
“No fae, with or without sense, would dare meddle with such magic. But you… Well, you are no fae.”
Her attention remained on the two faint lights overhead.
“Mortal Heart’s Whisper,” she muttered. Her lyre rested in the crook of Grentuff’s dark-pelted arm, the polished wood reflecting the luster of distant stars.
It pained her to witness its cut string, the instrument voiceless.
She needed the lyre back, but did she dare embrace another light? One she didn’t know and hadn’t heard.
Trisha’s fingers twitched, the half-healed scars of the night dance still stinging on her skin. Tilia had rubbed sap from her tree on them while humming softly, its gentle magic sealing the wounds. Only pale scars remained, and in time, they, too, would fade.
Trisha sighed. “Very well, Grentuff. You are the master artisan. I trust in your craft.”
He hobbled into action so quickly it would have surprised Trisha had she not already witnessed it. After all, she’d spied on him in her childhood, begging him until he’d relented to fashion her lyre.
His gnarled hands seemed to find tools from the shadows.
Beneath the rocks. Even pulling them out of thin air.
All the while, a mix of a low hum and a growl left his mouth.
The fae hobbled toward the clearing where the dark pond lay, smooth like a mirror, reflecting the lights above.
“Begone, sprite!” he shooed Rilka away, tossing the stone he’d picked up earlier at the fairy.
Rilka flitted back to Trisha, giggling. Grentuff glared after her, grumbling and waving his hands.
The pond’s surface rippled. He started spooling the light from the stars—from the two faint celestial bodies.
A narrow golden thread looped around his clawed fingers, growing more luminous.
Almost carelessly, he flicked his wrist, setting the water’s surface rippling again.
The starlight dimmed, the thread cut loose.
Picking a pale string from a cobweb overhead, Grentuff wove the starlight with it.
His wordless song strengthened, and the light brightened.
Then, he lifted the lyre, and with a suspicious glance toward Trisha and Rilka, the fae turned to show them his furry, hunched back.
A faint sound, like a bird’s cry or falling rain, shivered through the clearing.
The artisan’s low hum pitched higher, then fell.
Trisha watched his progress, throat tight, hands clenched by her sides.
Grentuff had assured her he’d be able to fix it, but he hadn’t yet, so she could not relax.
She didn’t even realize she’d walked forward until she stood before the brown-furred artisan, unable to tear her eyes away from the curved instrument—her friend—its gleaming wood even shinier under the dark hands of Grentuff.
“Sublime. Better,” he whispered reverently. A pluck of the string—the one that had previously limped from the frame like a wilted flower. A deep, clear sound sent shivers down Trisha’s spine. Sharper than before.
The hunched fae turned to Trisha. A moment of hesitation passed before he lowered it into her waiting palm. But he didn’t let go, not immediately. “Remember our bargain,” he hissed. “At your death.”
Her fingers grazed the warm wood, the magic in her recognizing the instrument. My voice, it cooed. We must play it.
“You’ll get your end of it,” she replied, meeting his black gaze, eager to touch the lyre again. How Grentuff would retrieve it from the mortal world at her death, she wondered but didn’t dare ask. Who knew what the artisan could or would do, and Trisha didn’t plan on dying. Not yet.
Slow, almost hesitant, he released the instrument from his grasp.
A warm, comforting feeling fluttered in Trisha’s chest and burned behind her eyes.
She pressed her friend against her chest. Testing the strings, she ran her fingers over them, her heart singing.
Slowly, barely daring, she plucked the new one.
At its sound, a held breath left her. Her shoulders loosened as the anxiety she’d not allowed herself to feel lifted.
“Thank you,” Trisha sighed.
He scoffed. “Next time, listen to your lyre better. It will tell you when its wits’ end is near. This instrument carries your sorrows, but even it cannot burden them all.” He threw a sharp smile, canines glinting in the twilight. “Part of the craft.”
On her way back, she couldn’t stop stroking the instrument. Neither did she want to.
“It looks no different,” Rilka declared. Perched on Trisha’s shoulder, she inspected the curved instrument. “Will it last?”
“I believe so,” Trisha said, smiling. Grentuff was right. The power it hummed with felt different, more resonant. Just holding the instrument sent her blood singing, and made her magic hum with contentment. She couldn’t wait to try it.
Back at her clearing, Tilia was waiting. She’d laid out a banquet like the one she’d prepared on her arrival. Her eyes flashed, a quick shadow passing over her face. “It went well, then? I see Grentuff fixed your instrument.”
“Yes.” Trisha’s fingers itched to test the strings, but something held her back.
She lowered herself onto the dewy grass and looked up at the waiting constellations, squeezing the lyre in her lap.
She accepted a cup of water, watching Rilka reject Tilia’s feast and dive after an earthworm. Her hunger waned.
“What will you do now?” Tilia asked. “Will you stay a while longer? Please?”
Trisha toyed with the edge of her dress’s hem. She couldn’t meet her adoptive mother’s stare.
“I’m sorry, I cannot,” she said quietly. The mortal world has become my home. I cannot abandon it.” Bitterness thinned her voice before she exhaled. She looked up. “I must return.”
“No!” Rilka abandoned the worm carcass, wiping her mouth with a pout. “Where will I sleep?” she demanded, crossing her tiny arms.
“Feathers, flowers?” Trisha suggested. “I’d give you my hair, otherwise, but I’m rather pleased that I didn’t need to sacrifice it this time.”
“Bah,” Rilka puffed, leaping into the air. Trisha watched her flutter away. She hoped Rilka would decide to return before her departure—with Rilka, she could never be sure. The fairy could just as well forget and then remember a week later.
Sorrow shadowed Tilia’s verdant eyes. “Perhaps because of what you left behind this time?”
“Yes. Because of him. Blainor,” Trisha sighed. “I left without a note, without a word.” She dodged Tilia’s knowing gaze and swallowed. “It wasn’t right, what I did.”
Anxiousness clawed at her stomach. What would Blainor say? Would he welcome her back?
“I’m glad for you,” Tilia said, watching the dusk-wreathed land and the dark river beyond. “Finding something… true… in that sunlit world.”
Trisha reached out to touch Tilia’s hand—seeding a smile on her adoptive mother’s face. “There are true things here, too. Things I hope to find one day. I wish I could stay, Tilia… Believe me, I do.” Trisha hesitated.
A question brushed her mind. She stared into Tilia’s smile, fearful of the answer that may come. Trisha just needed to hear one word, and she would drop everything without question. “Should I, mother?”
Tilia’s smile was rueful. Golden flecks danced in her eyes. “The Undying Lands were never meant for mortals. You belong among your kin. I think you know that by now.”
“It’s… It’s not a goodbye, I just—” Trisha’s voice choked. “I can still come visit you.” She frowned. “I will. I promise. Next time, I hope to come with something more than just myself.”
Tilia didn’t answer, but her tree-bark face seemed to stiffen.
“A-And I could play?” she offered in desperation, staring deep into Tilia’s eyes.
“I’d like that,” Tilia said softly, perking up. “Play me something you’ve learned in your travels. A memory I can carry after you’re gone.”
Trisha lifted the lyre in her lap, running its strings under her fingernails.
A memory from the mortal world that Tilia would appreciate?
Did she, too, miss the sunshine and rain like the sylvan?
Idly, she ran her fingers over the instrument, and a melody curled out, filling the clearing.
Even if she didn’t know, her fingers and her magic seemed to sense what strings to pluck, what to play.
The music grew, following an unvoiced knowledge from within.
The lyre trembled under her hand. Magic flowed through the lyre, into her song.
It felt like her old friend just had a much-needed sleep, now awake and ready to face a new day with profound rejuvenation.
Heat spread through Trisha. She coaxed out the cadence of the hooves against the ground, the drumming heart of the trees, the wind. How the sun crept over the sky, and the rot that crept over the land, bringing new life—the North Road.
Tilia listened with glee, green eyes closed, her bark hands digging into the soil. Her leaf-hair swayed as though touched by the unseen wind of Trisha’s song, and when the melody faded, she opened her eyes. They shone in bursts of gold and green.
Trisha didn’t stop there, enjoying the sense of her reborn lyre, its new timbre different yet the same.
Her magic felt more attuned, gentler, under the tunes flowing out from the instrument.
They sat a long time this way—Trisha playing, Tilia listening.
At some point, Rilka drifted back, brought by the wind or the music.
She didn’t speak, just fetched her little bone flute and joined Trisha.
When the endless twilight and the music made Trisha too tired, she crawled back to the hollow in Tilia’s tree.
“I’ll come with you,” Rilka whispered in her ear, arranging Trisha’s long mahogany strands into a nest. “To see the sun. The people.”
Trisha smiled, the tips of her eyebrows arching in sweet appreciation. “If you wake up in time to follow me to the Opening, that’s enough.”