Chapter 2 Araphi #2
Yes, she might be booed off the stage or have to dodge a few bottles or tankards, but at least Phi Runesong is doing something other than making conversation at a dreary engagement party, or listening to Denby rattle on about the weights of different ores and the mine carts his father just bought.
Danger is not something Araphi is supposed to love—not according to her mother and fathers—but gods help her, she craves it. And it doesn’t hurt that Ruby is looking at her from the other side of the bar with anticipation.
Araphi can’t help but send her a wink as she walks toward the front of the tavern.
The crowd whistles as she climbs the three steps to the stage, which makes Araphi grin.
She’s used to admiration for her looks, but never in anticipation of her talent.
Her fingers are sweaty, and she wraps them around the small, silver, lemon-shaped charm she’s worn since childhood.
She’s switched out its usual gold chain for a leather cord to better fit in here tonight.
As she holds the charm, the scent of lemons wafts around her, bright and familiar.
The smell calms her as it always does, but the charm itself is more than it seems. Passed down through her mother’s family, it’s a powerful amplifier for bardic magic.
The charm makes it that much more likely that Araphi’s song will reach the ears of a friendly deity willing to listen and give her a boon in exchange.
Not that it would help much if she weren’t skilled with a lute, which she certainly is.
Inhaling sharply, she lets the smell of lemons chase her nerves away.
She’s ready for this.
Releasing the lemon charm, she strums her lute, making sure it’s still in tune.
“This song is a little different from the others you’ve heard tonight,” her voice rings out. It’s a drawing room voice, like the one her Aunt Menorath uses to whittle people into little pieces, but now it catches the crowd, holding them captive to her words.
This might not be a ballad crowd, but it’s one that loves music and knows the value of a skilled performer.
And Araphi is marvelous. From the first moment she strums her lute and her voice floats across the room, as rich and honeyed as mead sipped by the fire on a winter’s night, the crowd is spellbound.
Slowly, she uses music to draw them into the hope and heartache of the story of Phoebe, a mortal girl, and Alia, the goddess she loved and lost. It’s Araphi’s favorite song, which makes her ache for the type of love she’s never known.
As she sings, she focuses her intention through her lemon charm and sends it out to the crowd, pulling them into the story.
There’s a moment when she feels it catch, the connection between her magic and music, weaving together, thin and shimmering.
Verse by verse, note by note, Araphi sings a story of lost love, great risk, and the faithless embrace of death.
By the time the ballad—all sixteen verses of it—is done, the enormous men Araphi was sitting next to at the bar are openly and loudly weeping. Behind the bar, Ruby beams at her, cheeks flushed.
Satisfaction twines through Araphi. She knew she was good at this! Though she isn’t supposed to be here, she belongs in this place more than she’s ever belonged in any of her parents’ homes.
Applause fills the tavern and Araphi pushes all thoughts of her family aside. Right now, it’s just her, the music still singing through her blood, and the crowd on its feet in front of her.
“More, more!” calls out someone in the crowd.
Clara inclines her head, and Araphi strums the first few notes of another song, this time a popular one that hasn’t been played yet tonight. The crowd cheers excitedly.
Two songs later, she finally leaves the stage, her fingers sore and her heart full.
She shakes hands, talks to admirers, and heads toward the door.
She’s the last bard of the night, and the prize is hers by an overwhelming majority.
She doesn’t need the money, but it’s nice to have something she’s earned through her own art, rather than her family’s name.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Just as I told your worthless cousin, you’re nothing without your name.
Araphi startles, still unused to the cantankerous voice of Clauneck, her family’s patron, as it fills her head.
He’s never paid much attention to her, and has only recently taken an unfortunate interest. Still, she long ago discovered that Clauneck could be blocked out with music and the whiff of bardic magic that clings to her, which he despises as he does anything that doesn’t profit the family, and thus him.
She pictures it like a wall of sheet music in her mind, an impenetrable barricade of staves and clefs and quarter notes.
Well, mostly.
When her guard is down or she’s feeling an especially strong emotion, he can break through the wall. Now that Araphi is heir, Clauneck is more obnoxious, and more motivated to bother her than before.
“Don’t you have business elsewhere?” she mutters.
I am eternally consumed with my own business. I have an entire realm to manage in the lower planes, as well as managing your family, since you all seem incapable. But what business do you have in a lowly tavern, and what do you have to be happy about?
“Nothing, go away.”
She hums a tune under her breath, something she’s done since she was a child, and Clauneck groans.
Miserable wretch. Will you never cease your useless warbling?
“Go away or I’ll sing louder,” she whispers sweetly.
With a string of abyssal curses, Clauneck leaves her head. Hastily, Araphi focuses on the music she’s humming and rebuilds the sheet-music barricade within her mind. She adds a few more layers, weaving them with bard magic, to keep Clauneck out. There, that should do it.
Being able to talk to Clauneck only when she wants to, not whenever he feels like, is crucial to Araphi feeling as though she still has some hold over her own head and heart.
Still humming, she makes her way to the tavern door.
If she hurries, she’ll be back in her room at her parents’ manor house before she’s found missing, after claiming a headache and begging off early from her own engagement celebration.
But as she’s pushing the door open, one of her former competitors catches her ear.
They’re speaking with Clara over a brimming tankard, and the word party stops Araphi in her tracks.
She lets the door shut and steps a bit closer.
“Who told you about this?” Clara challenges a bard with a lyre under their arm. “Seems awfully late in the season for it, and why the secrecy?”
“Heard it from a sailor up from Shearwater—trustworthy fellow. Don’t know more than that, but they’re holding auditions through tomorrow in Kingfisher, a place called the Pearl and the Grit, and I might just make my way there.
The purse is supposed to be very impressive,” the bard tells the tavern owner.
“More than I’d see in a year’s work in the field, mayhaps two.
And what party wouldn’t want the best bard in Harrow? ”
Clara scoffs at the bard’s boast, then turns as she seems to sense Araphi’s eyes on them both. With a quick smile and a shallow curtsy, Araphi hurries past.
As she pushes through the tavern door, the winner’s purse jangling in her dress pocket tells her she’s good enough to play at any party.
And it just so happens, she’s meant to be heading to Kingfisher tomorrow with her attendants.
Shopping in the port city isn’t as luxurious as it is in the capital, but you can purchase fabric and dresses fresh off the ships newly arrived from neighboring realms. She could get a head start and catch the enchanted barge down the Willowthorn River tonight.
Send a note to her family explaining, perhaps, that she heard a rumor of a famous textile merchant arriving from Locronan and went on ahead for an early look.
Really, who is going to miss her? These past few months since Yael defected and Araphi was shoved upward to the position of Clauneck heir, she’s seemed to be the least necessary presence when it comes to planning her own life.
Doesn’t she deserve to enjoy one last good time, one last wild party, before really and truly devoting herself to Denby and their marriage?
Absolutely, she does.
Out in the chilly autumn night, Araphi inhales sharply.
A great surge of happiness floods through her as she starts walking down the road to the river—not to cross on the ferry and head toward home and all of her obligations, but to wait at the docks so she can catch the last craft that sails tonight for Kingfisher.
Soon enough, she’ll come back to be the perfect wife, the dedicated Clauneck heir, and she’ll put away both her lute and her dreams.
But until then, she is going to party like she never has before.