Virellean.

  It sounded like the name of a noble—someone important. Famous bards didn’t have boring names. They weren’t John’s or Charles’s, Mary’s or Jill’s. That was what he’d thought, and so he’d chosen the fanciest name he could think of at the time.

  Look at me. I want everyone to look at me.

  ***

  Something pierced his stomach, but Bruno ignored it as his sword tore through the flesh of another beast. Mana ran through his body, filling it with unnatural strength and pain in equal measure. He was grateful for it though as the monsters swarmed him—without the power it granted, he would have fallen long before.

  Hazarding a glance behind, he saw that his sister and Kei were both still alright, watching from the doorway, unwilling to completely retreat without him. He felt a strong sense of satisfaction knowing that they cared, but guilt at the very thought overwhelmed him a moment later. Still, his pride wouldn’t let him retreat further.

  They’d been forced into a half-ring around the outside of the entrance, holding back the onslaught as it grew fiercer and fiercer. Bruno wasn’t the only non-combatant still fighting either, dozens of others had come out of the manor to defend it—anyone with real training. Beside him, one of the staff fought next to a retired adventurer.

  A glowing green butterfly drifted down onto his shoulder, where he’d taken another wound. Faint relief bubbled up from where it touched him, and he felt some small strength returning to his arm.

  Across from him, one of the defenders was overwhelmed by the horde and fell. As he fell, a monster broke through the gap he’d left, bounding towards the open door of the manor where his sister was watching. Without realizing it, Bruno had already started moving, and he plunged his rapier into its flank as he tackled it to the ground.

  Teeth bit into his arm, and pain flared like the sun.

  Bruno screamed.

  ***

  Vuno-Niwt.

  It was a phrase in Khadati meaning “without sky”.

  Bruno thought whoever named it must have been a poet, because it was true in more ways than one. The city was a sprawling labyrinth built within the caverns and tunnels of the Auster mountains, which separated the central basin from Khadat.

  In short, it was a nightmare for humans to live in, and in fact, it had been a penal colony before winning several wars to establish its independence. But as it happened, the city was home to the largest collection of naturally-forming light stones anywhere on Aeora. From the ceilings, to the walls, to the floors, everywhere one looked, they would see the shimmering gems of light. It was in the mining of these stones that the city had amassed its fortune

  It was under this false sun that two children were born—a boy and girl, left outside a brothel in the slums, swathed in cloth. Taken in by no one, they were thus given to the state, becoming slave-citizens. Enchanted silver bands around their right wrist marked them as property, and prevented them from leaving the caverns.

  They were housed in a stone dormitory with a hundred other children, fed thin porridge twice a day, examined monthly for illness or defect, and woken every morning by bell.

  At age seven, they were lined up with hundreds of other children, stripped naked, and measured like cattle. Weight, height, the breadth of their shoulders, the length of their legs—each feature noted and sorted, marking them for future roles. They were separated into two lines after that, one for the children believed to have worth, and another for those without.

  Bruno and Aria did not end up in the same line.

  While his sister began to learn domestic tasks like cooking and cleaning, Bruno was leased out to various duties around the city. He cleaned ash pits, hauled bricks, and worked on the slak farms—which provided the disgusting slop that filled their bowls each day. The slak farms were the worst of all, scraping the mossy brown substance off the walls and floors of the caverns for hours, until his hands bled and his knees were raw.

  When he returned to the dorms each night and saw Aria, a small part of him burned with envy. When she cried seeing his torn and callused hands, he hated himself for it, and whispered that it would be just fine. That was where Bruno first learned to lie.

  The day Bruno saw the bard, everything changed.

  ***

  He was nine, carrying stones as he helped older slaves repair a well in the city. As they worked, the crowd’s eyes ran over them as though they weren’t even there, the same way you didn’t spare a glance for a rusty knife in the corner of a workshop.

  The strange man stood in the midst of the crowd, unremarkable in every way, and their eyes drifted past him just the same. He carried an object that Bruno had never seen before, a piece of wood with strange strings stretched down its length—but it didn’t seem to catch the attention of the crowd.

  Until he struck it, and everyone looked his way.

  A harmony of notes rang out, and his voice rose with it. Bruno had heard street performers before, but for reasons he didn’t understand, for the first time, he really listened. The bard didn’t sing like a spirit, but something in the song called to Bruno, and his heart began to race. People began to gather around, similarly entranced, as the man sung of the five kings—Tareon conquering the Coatl, Alera defeating a sphinx in a battle of wits, and Edrian becoming king of Prium.

  Some of the stories Bruno had heard before, some he hadn’t. But all of them suddenly seemed new, cast in a light he couldn’t have imagined before. As the strings trembled with the music, so too did he.

  Bruno couldn’t pull his eyes away, and neither could the crowd. They were all looking at the bard, listening to his song. That was all it took. With just a single note, he could become the most important thing in the world. No, he was the world—a different one—even if only for a moment.

  ***

  He began to practice in secret. He sang under his breath while he scraped slak from the cavern floor. He turned one ear to street performers when he worked or wandered in the city, and listened, enamoured by each and every song and story he heard. At night, Aria taught him to read and write by the light of dim moonstones. And so, that boy added a second love to his heart.

  Though he didn’t know when, at some point, he began to dream of a grand theatre. Across the world, in a place where the caverns of Vuno-Niwt didn’t exist, and the sky stretched out as far as the eye could see, sparkling with countless stars, more beautiful than any light stone. If he performed there, surely, they would see him. That dream seemed to him to be the most beautiful thing in the world.

  A year after his encounter with the bard, he finally shared this dream with his sister. His hands trembled, and his voice caught, but he sang her a story in the dim light of a moonstone.

  “That was amazing,” Aria said when he finished, breathless.

  Bruno couldn’t suppress his relieved smile. “What was your favorite part?”

  “Your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve never seen them look like that before. Your whole face changed!” She giggled. “It was amazing.”

  I meant the story. That’s what he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  “Let me try,” she said. “It looked fun. I want to sing a song for you too.”

  Aria began to sing.

  And Bruno knew then, that he would never compare to his sister. Next to her, he had no worth at all. But he couldn’t look away. Even without words, without a story, his sister’s voice seemed to touch the very soul of the world, and when the spirits gathered for the first time in her presence, he wasn’t even surprised. In his heart, he hoped that the moment would last forever.

  Those ethereal seconds seemed to last a lifetime, but eventually, she trailed off, her face red and breath shallow. “Well?” she whispered, “was—was that good?”

  Bruno was unsure what to say. But that night, the cracks in their cage finally began to form.

  ***

  As Aria’s talents blossomed, her value increased—a slave with a voice like hers was worth more indeed. But with an increase in value, came an increase in her own ability to earn meager amounts of money. Performances for guests and plutocrats earned her copper pieces, considered trivial rewards by the overseers. She was considered a ‘flower yet to bloom’, and in only a few years, her price would increase far faster than she could hope to earn.

  Technically, any slave in the city could earn money with the permission of their master—though it was tradition more than law in the case of private ownership. But the apathy of government was to the benefit of slave-citizens in that regard, and a few talented slaves managing to buy their freedom was a good thing for reducing dissent.

  If they made it, you can too. So work hard and behave!

  Bruno knew the sharpest lies were those that held an ounce of truth, but he still reached for it, even as his hands bled. His own dream was dust—Aria was far more important. She couldn’t rot in a place like Vuno-Niwt, he wouldn’t allow it. And so Bruno began to believe the lie.

  He sold his excess labor out to anyone that would buy it, taking breaks only to eat and sleep. It was only possible because his normal duties began to consist of accompanying Aria to performances. She claimed she could not sing without him there, and persisted, even under threat of lashing, until the overseers finally relented.

  “I can’t sing for no one,” she would say when he asked why, shaking her head as if it was a silly question. He wondered if it was just her own subtle way of rebelling, and despite their threats, Aria was never actually beaten—that would affect her value. Better to detract from his own meager labor instead.

  When it became clear that he couldn’t earn enough with honest work, he turned to other methods. He learned to charm people, using his youth to his advantage. Long sleeves could cover a slave-band if you could convince them you weren’t one. He scammed and swindled and stole, doing anything he could to earn just a slightly larger fraction of what his sister could.

  Until the day finally came.

  Aria had argued with him furiously, saying she would wait until they had saved enough for the both of them. But Bruno knew that would be almost impossible. They had turned fourteen—they were out of time.

  At the first chance, he took their stash from behind the loose brick in the courtyard and took it to the magistrate’s office. It only took a few minutes, the exchange of money, and the stamping of a few papers.

  When he returned, he found his sister waiting with tears in her eyes.

  “Why Bruno?”

  “It was the only thing that made sense.”

  “I would’ve—we could’ve—you didn’t have to! I didn’t want you to!”

  Bruno smiled, feeling lighter than he had in a long time. “What are you still doing here? Go get that band off.”

  Aria shoved him onto the ground. “And what about you?”

  Bruno stared up at her, shocked. He’d never heard her sound like that before.

  “I’m coming back for you, idiot.”

  “No!” He scrambled to his feet, grabbing her shoulders. “Don’t do that! Leave, Aria! Get out of this city and never come back! You shouldn’t be in a place like this! You’re worth so much more than that!”

  “Worth?” she scoffed. “You sound just like them—assigning importance to people without valuing them at all!”

  “Don’t you dare compare me to them.”

  “We could’ve gone together! I didn’t want you to—”

  “That’s stupid!” he shouted, finally reaching his boiling point. “It was a naive fantasy Aria! Open your eyes and look around! As long as we’re stuck in this place, we have nothing.”

  “I have you, and you have me…” she whispered. “Didn’t you tell me that once?”

  Bruno grew quiet, and his hands tightened on her shoulders. “They’ll find a way to take that too. Staying here—it’s like a poison, don’t you get that? I want you to get out Aria, while you can. Please…”

  “I’m free now Bruno, aren’t I?” She brushed his hands off. Her eyes were duller than he’d ever seen before. “So I’m going to do what I want to do. Until then, wait for me.”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  In the face of her resolve, he couldn’t say anything else. But even as she left, he never told her what he felt deep down. He was afraid to wait for her—to hope for her to come back—because a part of him was certain she never would.

  ***

  Bruno grunted as he scraped slak off of the ground and gathered it into a wicker basket. When he was younger, his knees had always hurt —they’d grown calloused and dark from years of rubbing against the bare stone, but he was grateful that he hadn’t been forced into the mines. Slak farming was every bit as arduous, but slaves that went into the mines often didn’t come back.

  The work dragged on endlessly, and Bruno’s hands slowly scraped raw along with the stone. When his stomach rumbled, he stealthily fingered small bits of the slak into his mouth, chewing down the mashy, bland substance until he could swallow it. Stealth was important there, as other slaves would report his ‘theft’ in exchange for rewards from their master.

  Someone kicked him in the back—one of the overseers.

  “The master wants to see you,” he said gruffly.

  Bruno spit onto the patch of slak, and watched as it greedily sucked up the moisture, changing colors from a dull brown to a vivid shade of orange. Then, he slowly got to his feet and silently followed the man back to the house.

  His master, a slug-faced man named Hidar, was waiting for him at the edge of the yard. Hidar was far from the worst Vuno-Niwt had to offer, but certainly not the best. But the person behind him caused Bruno’s breath to catch in his throat. No matter what she’d promised, a part of him hadn’t really believed her.

  As he stood dazed, Hidar grabbed Bruno’s arm and touched the keystone to his silver band. With a faint fizzling sound, it opened up, and just like that, he was free.

  Hidar held out a hand. “You did good work lad. Enjoy life on the other side.”

  Bruno looked down at the hand, then up at his face, which seemed earnestly satisfied to let him go. It was a sickness of the mind, one that spread too easily, and entrenched itself deep. If he could have, he would have burned that sickness out—but in that moment, Bruno just wanted to leave.

  He ignored the outstretched hand and walked past him to where his sister waited. She was taller than when he’d last seen her—and she’d filled out some as well. She looked healthy, and he was glad for it.

  “I got your letters—” was all he could say before she almost tackled him in a hug, breaking into tears against his chest.

  “I’m sorry it took so long.”

  “It’s only been two years, Aria. You were fast.” He began to choke up himself, his whole body shaking as he embraced her back. “Besides, I’m tough. It was easy to wait.”

  Another lie.

  ***

  The breath cut his lungs like glass, but didn’t seem to bring much air at all. The sky was too dark, and Bruno couldn’t tell if it was because of the eclipse, or if his vision was just dimming. The sounds of the battle were distant through the ringing in his ears, and his nose was filled with the scent of blood, matching the taste on his tongue.

  He kept fighting anyway. Aria was in the manor, Kei too. There were children, clutching their mothers as they huddled in the dark.

  His sword pierced a monster. He stumbled.

  Another spit acid onto his arm, and it burned his clothes before he ran it through. Spinning, he turned to look for the next.

  Until a voice split the battlefield like the ringing of a bell.

  “Fourth form, Purifying Flame.”

  A wave of fire rushed past Bruno’s body, leaving him untouched as the flames spilled out across the battlefield. As it fell onto the horde, monsters shrieked out, then fell silent in its wake.

  Eryndor stepped past him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry, young Virellean.” His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You’ve done enough. Rest now, and know that your sister will be safe.”

  That was all he needed to hear. Bruno’s legs gave way, and he collapsed, sinking into the dirt. Eryndor marched forward, and monsters fell in droves, but that was a different story now.

  “Bruno!” Someone was screaming. He knew that voice better than anyone. “Bruno!”

  He felt hands grabbing his head, and his vision swam. As his eyes slowly refocused, he saw his sister crying as she cradled him against her chest.

  “You’re alright,” she whispered, choking on her words. “You’re going to be alright!”

  “Aria… get back inside.”

  She shook her head violently, pulling him even tighter as her tears ran down and dripped onto his face. As his hazy vision drifted down past his ruined midsection, he could see two sets of chains wrapped around his ankles. The left snaked south, off into the distance where that hellish city remained. The right wrapped around Aria, linking the two of them together.

  Bruno reached out, determined to break them, and they shattered in his hand without a sound.

  “That’s good.” He couldn't help but smile. “You’ll be fine now.”

  “Liar!” Aria screamed, clinging tighter. “Don’t go! I don’t want you to go!”

  The eclipse deepened, and a bitter cold crept up from his toes. His hands trembled, fear coiling in his chest. Of course—Bruno didn’t want to die.

  “Aria… would you sing me a song? One more song?” It was a cruel thing, he knew, but he asked anyway.

  She let out an anguished cry, her face twisting with grief. But after an endless moment, she managed to face him again, nodding through her tears, and she began to force out the words.

  One note, that was all it took. All other sounds faded away. Her voice reached out, breaking with each word, yet holding him in a gentle embrace. Bruno’s hand stilled. No matter how many times he heard her, he was still entranced.

  The sky grew darker still, and her voice grew distant. He strained his ears, not wanting to miss a single note. He strained his eyes, trying to take in every detail of her face. Her eyes gazed down at him, sparkling amethyst, the most beautiful in the all the world.

  Oh… You were always looking at me, weren’t you Aria? You were always watching, I just never really noticed, did I?

  The sky grew darker still, and her voice…

  ***

  Virellean.

  It sounded like the name of a noble—someone important. Famous bards didn’t have boring names. They weren’t John’s or Charles’s, Mary’s or Jill’s. That was what he’d thought, and so he’d chosen the fanciest name he could think of at the time.

  “We have a name Aria,” he grinned as he scratched the characters onto a broken plank. “That means we’re family. And it means we’re important.”

  Aria looked over from beneath her blanket, squinting to see in the light of the dimming candlelight. Beneath them, the wagon rumbled over the bumpy trail, shaking the hay they were resting in. “Both of those things were already true,” she mumbled.

  “Sure sure, but this proves it.”

  “Proves it to who?”

  Bruno looked back towards the mountains, where light still leaked from within the caverns of the city. His breath fogged in the cold winter air as his blanket sat beside him, unused. Winter. It had only been a word before—a way of tracking passing time—but now a chill stung his skin, and made his body shiver. How could something so painful be so wonderful? He looked up at the sky, trying to count all the stars he could see, but found it was impossible.

  Proves it to who?

  He didn’t have an answer for her. The parents who’d abandoned them? The city he hated? The people they’d come to meet? Each answer he came up with seemed incomplete.

  “Bruno,” Aria whispered. “Would you tell me a story?”

  His eyes widened slightly, and he remembered a dream he’d had once before.

  “Sure, but in return… would you sing me a song?”

  ***

  Bruno opened his eyes, feeling no pain at all. The sky was brighter—a beautiful, cloudless blue—but his sister’s voice was gone, replaced by the faint melody of wind through the grass. He stood on a small hill, a stone’s throw from the edge of a riverbank. Somehow, the other side of the river was hazy, and he couldn’t make out anything beyond.

  At least she’s alright.

  He felt strangely calm as he took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air. Soon, he noticed a small boat drift closer and beach itself on the shore. The vessel looked similar to those that rode the rivers outside of Liresil, with a single sail, woven from green cloth and faded under the sun. A man sat at the edge of the craft, hit feet dangling off the side. He was dressed in ornery green robes, with woven sandals, and a thick, reddish brown beard.

  “Ended up on the wrong side huh? Care for a ride across?” The man called over to him.

  Looking back, he saw only a vast, hilly jungle behind him. His own body had lost its injuries, and his clothes had changed into a simple tunic and trousers, both a pure white.

  “I’m dead, aren’t I?” he asked.

  The man held out a hand. “Probably. If you’re talking to me.”

  “A ferryman guiding souls to the next life… I didn’t think it would be so literal. Though I suppose I might just be seeing things as I die.”

  The man chuckled to himself, as though Bruno had told a funny joke.

  “What exactly are you?” Bruno asked.

  “A poignant question,” the man stroked his beard. “What do you think?”

  “Some type of spirit?”

  “Not too far from the truth.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Bruno sighed. “Do you at least have a name?”

  “No,” the man said. “But if you must, you can call me Shard.”

  “Shard huh? That’s a terrible name.” Bruno walked down the hill towards the banks of the river. His sandals crunched in the sand. “So what will happen if I go to the other side?”

  Shard shrugged. “I couldn’t say. I can’t go there myself. Or rather… you’d better hope I don’t!” He laughed again. “I can only guide you across.”

  “Can I stay here?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. In limbo, there are things that can even harm the dead. Only this boat and the other shore are safe.”

  Bruno blew air out from his cheeks, looking around one last time. “I guess there’s nothing else to do then, is there?” He stepped onto the boat, and it immediately set off from the shore, without Shard lifting so much as a finger.

  As they drifted into the current, he noticed a thread wrapped around his right ankle, just like the chain that had been there before. It looped around once, then trailed down into the water and out of sight. Bending down, he tugged at it, but unlike before, it wouldn’t budge.

  Shard placed a hand on his shoulder. “Did you really think your bonds were so weak that something as simple as death could sever them?”

  “No, I just…” His voice trailed off as he saw his sister’s face reflected on the water’s surface. “I didn’t want her to—”

  As long as we’re together, we’re invincible… Get it Aria? The two of us? We don’t have anything to fear.

  The image distorted as a teardrop sent ripples through the water, then another, until the image was so blurry that Bruno couldn’t make it out at all.

  “Damn it!” He shouted out across the water, stretching the vowels until he ran out of breath. “Damn it damn it damn it! I seriously died? This sucks! Three years of freedom and I’m already dead? What a load of shit!” He let out a groan of raw frustration, rubbing his face with his hands. “I didn’t even get to do anything! I was supposed to perform in Taravast! I was supposed to get rich and famous! Karma is dead in this stupid shit-stain of a world! I hate every bit of it all, I really do! From the beginning to the end of time, this world absolutely blows!”

  As words ran dry, he just started to shout. Regret, frustration, sadness, all of them left him in their rawest forms. He didn’t know how long he screamed and shouted, or how long he cried, but eventually, the well ran dry, and he sat on his knees, sobbing laughter from his chest.

  “Are you… alright?” Shard asked.

  Bruno took a deep breath to collect himself. “Honestly? Yeah, that helped.”

  He wiped the tears from his face, then looked down at his hands. They were smooth, without any of the calluses they’d had. Past them, the river ran by, washing everything away. Staring into its surface, he thought he could almost see his sister’s face. In its sounds, he could almost hear her voice.

  “I wanted them all to see me. I wanted to validate my own existence—to prove that someone like me could take center stage, even if just for a moment. Maybe that’s why… No.” He shook his head. “Surely my dream meant more than that. Regardless of how it might have started, I chose to keep following that path. There was beauty in it, I think. I was my own person until the very end.

  “Despite that, I was only ever a footnote in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t I? A small note in the lives of greater people than myself. The river will flow onwards, carrying away any evidence I ever was. That stings. But even so, I guess I still came out ahead.”

  Bruno reached out and touched the water, smiling. Yes, he could see her clearly now, just as she’d always seen him.

  “After all… I really was loved.

  ***

  Wyn let out a long breath as he took in the state of the House of Spring. The serene, fenced garden had been torn to shreds, the fountain in the middle was broken and leaking out into the dirt where it pooled with the remnants of the rain. The moon crossing in front of the sun created a haunting light, which shimmered through the gaps in the trees. Entire sections of the orphanage had collapsed into piles of wood, and there was a gaping hole in the entrance of the adjacent clinic.

  He called out for the children, hoping for a response. He was answered only by silence, and the sound of trickling water. The dull thrum of the sickening power filled his mind, calling to him from just below his feet.

  In a trance, he roamed the property, searching further. He found the body of one of the caretakers, Jana, crushed under the rubble of one of the collapsed roofs, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find any sign of the children. He hoped that was a good sign, and they’d escaped to somewhere safe, but he couldn’t shake the bad feeling in his gut.

  Finally the answer came to him, as he came around to the main yard again, and his eyes fixed on the large iron door—the entrance to a cellar of some kind. The door was slightly ajar, as though it had been closed in a hurry and left unlocked, but with a little effort, Wyn pulled it open, releasing a rush of cooler air from inside. Past the door, a set of stone stairs descended a short way, leading down to another iron door.

  Unlike the first, this one wasn’t open, and Wyn had to use a firestone to finally break it down. As he kicked the mangled door off its hinges, it clattered against mossy stones, echoing down a spiraling path that led further down. He kept walking, the damp air faintly sweet against his tongue.

  The path opened up abruptly as he turned a corner, revealing a huge cavern hiding below the surface. Lightstones, growing from the walls like capillaries, lit the cavern with a pale green glow. It seemed there had once been pathways branching out at the edges, but they’d been sealed up by grated metal gates, letting air in while preventing anything larger than a rat from entering or exiting.

  Wyn saw strange, monstrous creatures roaming the space, twisted amalgamations and bulks of flesh that shambled awkwardly across the ground, moaning quietly as they did.

  And at the center of it all, Iskareth, ‘Father’, stood quietly before a giant, fleshy cocoon. The mass of red and purple was only slightly larger than a person, but it drew his eyes to it more than any monster he’d ever seen. Even without his new senses from Haoma, one look at it told Wyn everything he needed to know, as every instinct and primal urge in his body told him that it should not exist.

  Iskareth was looking at him already, no doubt having heard the explosion at the door. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, Wyn couldn’t make out the expression on his face.

  “It’s you then,” Iskareth said tiredly. “I see. What a shame.”

  Behind him, the cocoon hummed louder, pulsing and thrumming like a sick, beating heart.

  busy. That said, none of that is a great excuse as far as I'm concerned, least of all for the lack of proper communication. I suck, and I'm sorry about that. I truly believe that the previous iterations of this chapter weren't good enough to see the light of day though. It really came down to continuing the grind, or cutting it, and... well here we are.