Echoes of Silence (2 page)

I had wondered then, as I did now, how she thought I would use my magic at all without her.

Olive finished the bouquet and moved into our small living room. I stayed rooted to the spot just inside the door, watching her. She gave me an exaggerated sigh—her lead-up to a lecture—as she fiddled with the drapes and adjusted the few trinkets we owned on the shelves.

Olive knew how to make a space beautiful, where to put a vase of flowers so that all would notice it, how to dress a window to get the best light in the winter and yet keep the sun out in the summer. While I noticed clothing and thread, she remembered people; their faces, their voices, their tastes.

Her long, earth-colored hair cascaded over her shoulder as she returned to the kitchen and retrieved our lunch from the oven. My stomach yearned for something of substance, but the scent indicated that Olive had made hash—once again. She said potatoes stretched our limited supply of beef, but we had run out of the meat last week. The thought of choking down more dry hash made me ill.

She slammed the oven gloves on the counter. “Tell me what happened.”

I looked at my shoes, which provided the answer she sought.

“Echo, tell me you didn’t.” Her voice ghosted between us, heavy with fear. “You cannot use magic here!”

“He was only going to pay half,” I said, still unable to meet her gaze. “I had to do something.”

“Like you had to
do something
to persuade the coal master?” Desperation tainted her voice, and I appreciated her concern for me.

“Yes, exactly like that.” I finally raised my eyes from the floor. “That spell-song provided us with heat for a week—during the coldest month of the year.”

“Even so,” she said. “I fear for you. You cannot—”

“We would have frozen to death,” I interrupted. “And this song made it possible for us to pay the rent.” I dropped the satchel containing the money on the counter, a river of fire flowing beneath my skin. “Almost.”

“A few extra coins are not worth using your voice.” Her words came from a genuine place of concern.

“This is a lot more than a few coins.” I pinned her with a pointed look. “I will not allow you to go back to that pit.” I moved to the window in the living room while she spoke about the High King and his magician hunters. I’d heard the stories from Oake before coming to the city. Whispered rumors told of hunting parties with magicians gifted with the ability to detect their own kind. Stories of orange-eyed magicians who chanted until the trees sharpened their limbs and stabbed holes through the hearts of men.

“It was a simple melody,” I said, tearing my thoughts from Oake. “I barely felt faint.” I sank onto a ragged chair, wishing I could eat and lie down, for though the song
had
been simple, I didn’t call on my magic often enough to be able to use it without extreme fatigue.

“Echo, please,” Olive said, the fight leaving her body. “What happens when you are caught? I cannot watch you get stripped of all freedoms, hung upside down, and bled out as the High King steals your power.”

She moved to sit next to me. “You cannot imagine the horrific things he would do for power like yours. Please.” She held me at arm’s length. “Please do not give voice to another song, no matter how simple.”

How easily we slipped into the roles we had shouldered. Her as my protector, always worrying about concealing my power from the Nythinian soldiers, and me as the financial administrator, worrying over whether or not we had the means to maintain our inconspicuous life.

“I want more for you,” I said.

“I simply want you to be safe,” she said. “That is why you came here.”

I thought of Iskadar, of the eight-day journey that had brought me to the city just twenty-four hours after Grandmother’s funeral. Rumors of Nythinian hunting parties in the village had made Oake concerned, and he had all but packed my bag in encouragement for me to flee to Umon for safety.

“Please,” Olive said again, drawing me into a hug. “No more magic.”

“I will try,” I said.

“That’s not good enough. You simply cannot let everything you think come out of your mouth.” She stood, reclaiming her position over me. “If you won’t do it for yourself, consider the danger you’re causing for me.”

I hung my head. My sister had a special gift to invoke guilt, even if doing so was meant to help. In this case, she was right. “I am sorry, Olive.”

Grandmother had said Olive had left Iskadar to find someone to bond with, but she never had. She had few skills, and she felt frustrated that she couldn’t provide for herself. She felt as caged in her life as I felt in mine. I was unable to do magic; she was unable to buy enough meat and milk.

There was precious little either of us could do to change our situation, so we stuck together, bonding in a nonmagical way, as we worked to make the best life for ourselves, even if it wasn’t the life we truly wanted.

“Please,” she said. “The dangers of using magic are too great.”

“I understand,” I said. “I won’t use magic again.” The statement seeped like poison into my bloodstream.

Grandmother taught me to evaluate a situation before acting.

“Look and listen first,” she said, her wise eyes noticing details in Oake’s magical puzzles that, even after she had pointed them out, I couldn’t seem to find.

And so I always looked and listened whenever I went to the market. Most of the merchants I dealt with for my sewing supplies knew me, and were fair. Still, I didn’t trust them, and we constantly haggled over prices.

My stomach growled at the tantalizing smell of pork kabobs and honeyed carrots. I had left home after choking down as much hash as I could—which was only a handful of bites. I feared I would faint if I ate nothing, though I’d flirted with the prospect.

I passed the food booths, heading for the notions stall in the back corner of the market. I adored buttons, and lace, and jeweled threads. I allowed myself a few extra minutes to look over all the wares in the booth, before selecting the sensible threads I needed for my work.

“These three,” I said, handing the merchant butter yellow, silver, and coral thread of medium weight. The colors would work well together against the navy fabric the duchess had selected for her new apron.

He glanced at the threads. “Forty.”

My breath stalled in my chest. “Forty?” I repeated. “I paid twenty for this much thread only weeks ago.”

The merchant curled his fingers around my would-be purchase. “Prices have gone up. Heona has increased the importation taxes.”

I looked southward, though I could not see beyond the walls of the market. I imagined the hills which rose in the distance, separating Umon from Heona and the ocean. Heona controlled all the ports, something both Umon and Nyth, which lay to the north, paid for dearly.

The Queen of Heona did not know magic, but was a master in economics. Oake insisted I keep up with the movement of rulers and their philosophies, claiming that a magician living in our uncertain times, and in a country stuck between two others, needed to know whom she could trust.

And right now, I couldn’t even depend on the price of thread to be stable. I looked at the merchant helplessly, then focused on the materials I needed. “What can I get for twenty?”

He considered the spools and held up the silver thread with a question in his eyes.

I simply couldn’t monogram the duchess’s apron in a single color. I’d never get hired again. I thought about the funds we still needed for rent, how bare the pantry had been, how Olive needed additional flowers to complete her arrangements.

I looked over my shoulder, remembering my promise to my sister. Worry seethed inside my bones as frustration built into a lump in my throat, one I could not swallow away. The market lay in the center of the city, filled with people. A simple persuasion rhyme would not be noticed.

Yet I stalled. I did not wish to take what I couldn’t pay for, but stitching the duchess’s apron in monotone simply would not do. I would suffer for this mistake for years, something I couldn’t afford. The merchant could absorb a small loss—and I vowed to make up the difference over time.

So I opened my mouth as if to speak, barely giving sound to the spell-song. I felt my power rush out of me, and I quickly stoppered it. My magic buzzed beneath my skin, making me itch.

The merchant took a step backward, his fingers releasing the thread. He studied me with blank eyes. I blinked and his face twisted, flickered, and became someone else’s.

My father’s face.

I had seen his kind eyes and gentle smile hundreds of times in the only portrait of him that Grandmother owned. Although he was familiar to me, I had never looked upon his face in person, as he had died when I was just four days old.

He couldn’t be here, now, in the marketplace of Umon. I couldn’t draw a proper breath as the merchant spoke with a voice not his own.

I closed my eyes, forcing reason into my mind. When I looked again, the merchant had morphed back into himself. Familiar ginger beard; watchful hazel eyes.

“Twenty?” he offered. My spell-song had worked. The thought brought me little comfort. I paid what he asked as my magic cleared from his eyes. I caught the distrustful look he gave me when he saw the lesser amount in his hand, and I quickly turned away from the notions stall.

Fear escalated through me as I navigated the crowd. I needed to get away from the merchant before he called for the guards. I needed to escape from the press of all these people, get out from behind this city’s walls. My legs shook with every step, and each face I saw bore my father’s midnight eyes.

I tried to erase his image from my mind, but it wouldn’t go. My power writhed within me. I worried that my footprints would shine with magic, and that I might not make it home without fainting.

I stumbled and collided with someone, who steadied me with his iron grip. “Are you well?” a man asked, but I dared not seek his face. I didn’t wish to see my father in him, could not bear another hallucination caused by my foolish use of singing spells while unbonded.

I leaned on the stranger for a mere moment, though I wanted to clutch him until the ground settled and people once again wore their own skin. “I am well.”

The man released me, and I chanced to look at him. A sigh of relief escaped my lips when I didn’t see my father’s face. But horror snaked through me when I recognized the Nythinian soldier who had entered the aristocrat’s house immediately after I had left.

“You should head home and rest.” His words curled with the slightest of accents. His eyes were the color of murky water; his hair dark and short. This time, he didn’t wear a scowl, but a watchful glint in his eye, like he knew something I didn’t.

Anger rushed through my head. “Don’t tell me what to do.” I turned and melted into the crowd before he could respond. I felt spent as the fury faded, and walking became a chore. I leaned against the outer wall of the market to catch my breath. I didn’t believe this particular soldier’s presence at the market was a mere coincidence. How much he knew about me, I couldn’t fathom. But he certainly knew something.

#

When the merchants began closing their shops, I eased into the flow of people leaving the square, taking care to stay out of sight of any soldiers. I dreaded returning to the apartment, where I faced another argument with Olive.

A thunderous crash ripped my thoughts from crafting the excuses I could provide for my sister. A jolt of magic froze me to the path, and the magically purchased thread fell from my fingers.

“No,” I whispered, but the power I kept carefully contained did not obey my command. A strange grinding noise tore from my throat as I tried to stop the song-spell from joining the escalating storm.

A note burst from my mouth as an arc of blue light whipped above my head and into the atmosphere. It cackled with the other magic already formed, and as the magicians calling up the storm continued their songs, the sky foamed with dark clouds.

I silenced my voice and sucked in a breath, remembering Oake’s teachings. He had warned me never to underestimate the power of proper breathing when working magic. But I didn’t want to work with magic right now. Able to move again, I slowly backed into the wall as the evening sky flashed cyan and then violet, and white lightning lit the rooftops. The magic-spun storm clouds seeped a magenta glow, and a voice, booming like thunder, shook the fragile ground beneath my feet.

The magic in my body tried to respond to the arches clawing into the sky. I suppressed the urge to stride through the streets, find the magicians producing this storm, and twine my voice with theirs.

My deep breathing did nothing. The pulsing in my gut sped; the need to release my power built toward a crescendo I feared would have to be satisfied.

Voices rained from the sky, bellowed in the language of the northern kingdom of Nyth. I didn’t understand a word, just like I did not understand why the High King had unseated our king, or how he had stayed only long enough to introduce his soldiers to Umon’s streets. I did not understand why he sent his son to control affairs in the city, just like I couldn’t comprehend enslaving magicians simply to produce colorful storms.

But what I didn’t understand was not important. The tingle of magic had reached my fingertips, and I turned quickly down an alley leading to the tight circle of towers in the residential sector. I couldn’t stay in the street where the imprint of my magic now existed.

Too many questions would be asked, questions I couldn’t answer. I ducked my head, forcing my feet to move faster over the rivuleting paths. I needed shelter, not only from the storm but also from myself. Every second outside urged me to release my power to the skies.

If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to hide this time.
And if I cannot hide, I’ll—
I cut off the thought, refusing to imagine what songs I would sing to escape. Olive had been quite detailed about what the High King did to his magicians to coerce them to obey his will. I’d become just as vile as he if I used my magic to inflict pain, even if only to remain free.

“This way,” a man’s voice said, the sound emerging from the stones of the surrounding buildings. His words curled with a Nythinian accent. I faltered, my pulse and my magic pounding. Had he seen me release my magic? Heard my voice?