Chapter 18 Echo from the Past
Emrys
Echo from the past
The old house, a prison for memories and lost souls like me, had been dormant in the last years, drowning me in its apathy.
A couple of ghosts, the echoes of Lord Valehurst’s atrocities in his pursuit for power, and, of course, the Lady in the Lake and her unborn baby, but nothing else.
Liang delivered news of a world that became more blurred and distant with every year, and even my ravens were not interested in venturing beyond these walls.
The assassins and the madmen Vexley was sending to steal my secrets were the only entertainment after Camille and Orren stopped writing, and I assumed that the Renegade and I were the only ones left from the Five.
When the little thief’s bright magic shook the manor awake, I was drawn to it, like a moth to the flame, like a stranded seafarer seeing a ship after a thousand years of solitude.
When we walked the howling corridors to the music room, I wondered if she sensed it, too. How shadows withdrew, candlelight burned higher, how the portraits on the walls followed her with curious eyes.
Warmth and bright light greeted us when we entered the old ballroom. The dust was gone. The piano keys shimmered like mother-of-pearl under the grand chandelier. She looked around me with wide eyes. Had she been in this hall before?
“Play something for me, Miss Daphne,” I said, leading her to the piano. Two glasses and a crystal decanter with brandy awaited us on a coffee table near the instrument. She moved like enthralled, her gaze fixed on the keys, her fingers trembling with anticipation.
“Any preferences?” she asked when sitting on the chair.
“Something that comes from your heart,” I said, distracted by the way the candle flames elongated and flickered when she passed by.
Did the manor respond to the undyne’s magic?
Or to something else inside her? I took a sip, blessing Liang for his thoughtfulness, and leaned on the polished ebony.
She tucked a short strand of hair behind her ear—and paused, her fingers lingering there for a moment too long, as if remembering something forgotten. Warmth spread in my chest.
I remembered how I first saw her—barefoot in the snow, eyes wild, as if begging for help. And my ravens had answered.
Then her fingers struck the keys.
The wards beneath the manor stirred. A ripple of magic unfurled through the floorboards, up the stone, into my bones.
It wasn’t only the wards responding. It was me.
And it was the melody.
That melody.
I should have turned away. Should have made a joke and changed the topic. But the ghost of her song clung like dust to old velvet, dragging up a name I hadn’t dared speak aloud in centuries.
“This is impossible,” I whispered.
“That melody…” she said, soft as breath. “You played it. The night I arrived. I knew it. I heard it before.”
“You couldn’t have,” I said, my voice hollow.
I turned away sharply. No. This wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
Was this the Renegade’s refined cruelty? Some trick to manipulate me?
“I just… knew the notes. Like they were part of me.”
She was not only a thief but a liar, too.
Yet I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help that silly hope that tore my chest open.
“Branwyn…”
The name spilled from my lips, raw as a wound.
Mortals couldn’t return from the dead. All the Five knew that.
Hollowborn were brought back by the Renegade’s foul spells, but they were only husks, walking carcasses stained by their starved magic, the memories of who they once were just shadows on the wall.
All of us from the Pentarchy had lost loved ones.
Falling in love with a mortal is something we learned the hard way to avoid, yet how could I have resisted Branwyn?
“You brought me home.” Branwyn’s last words still burned inside me.
Her blood, as red as her hair, trickled into the soil of her village.
I wiped off the entire legion sent after her and the rebels, but the Romans were tricky, and their spears—merciless.
I watched the Eternal Night claim her, claim me, and darkness fell over me for centuries.
The final note of the old song hung in the air, the wards resonating with it, and I forced myself to look at the woman at the piano.
Brown hair shorn to the chin, lips curled in a defiant half-smile, eyes the color of lavender—so different from the raw beauty of the warrior princess I buried in these lands millennia ago. And yet… something stirred.
Her shadow. A thread of her fire. But not Branwyn. No—something else.
“Do you feel it, Emrys?” she asked. My heart lurched.
I cleared my throat. “Feel what?”
“There’s a hum in the air. Like… glass, vibrating.”
I downed the rest of the brandy. “The wards respond to the undyne inside you,” I said. Even I didn’t believe it. There was something more. Something I couldn’t name.
She studied me, suspicion sharpening her gaze. “Are the wards in that ritual chamber below?”
I chuckled.
Ah, my clever little thief. This woman had fire, but she was no reincarnation of my Branwyn. This one was fierce, calculating, and equally dangerous.
“Planning to take them down, Miss Daphne? Free me and slip away into the chaos?” I grinned. She shook her head, her short locks spilling over her face. I watched her, mesmerized. There was something from my lost love, after all. Brave. Stubborn. Tempting.
She tried to mask her horror. Delight unfurled in me like smoke. So, the little thief was plotting something.
Then her fingers brushed the keys again, and the first notes of Branwyn’s song echoed through the room.
It was too much.
The weight of time, of everything I had lost, swept over me like a tide. I sensed it in my spine. My shoulders. My soul.
I felt ancient.
Did she notice the effect this song had on me? Was this a game she was playing?
“Good night, Miss Daphne,” I said, turning toward the door. “And thank you for the company. Don’t go outside. Don’t wander to the lake.” My voice sounded different. Strained. Too many had ghosts already stirred.
The music stopped, and I heard her take a sharp breath. Was she surprised that I left? Disappointed?
When I closed the door behind me, the melody resumed. Different this time, more cheerful. Hungry for life.
I walked into Liang in the entry hall. “How did it go?” he asked. He had his coat on and was loading his favorite gun.
“Are you heading out?” I dodged his question, but that made him pause and look at me with a half-smile.
“It went well, then,” he said and headed to the door. “Will check for any of the Renegade’s scum.”
“Can you…keep an eye on her too? She’s reckless. Might head out into the night again.”
Liang froze with his hand on the doorknob and smiled. “Of course.”
He vanished into the night.
I stood in the silence, staring at nothing.
When I headed to find Nibble, I caught myself smiling.