I Sing
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The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 01 free porn video
Author’s note:
Those of you who may have read my other submissions will already know this but all of my non-erotic stories take place within the same fantasy universe. So if you like this one, try whatever else I might have uploaded here.
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Chapter One
When Empress Dawn pulled her eyes from their sockets and threw them into the sky, she had meant it to symbolize her watchfulness over her subjects, no matter where they lived. Days like these made Eldrian wonder whether that could be true. After all, how else could the land look so perfect, so pristine, on a day so otherwise miserable. It had rained during the night, leaving the midday a spattered-clean canvas. Keladesh itself had tidied up for the seeing off.
The full weight of the afternoon hadn’t yet connected. It would, Eldrian had little doubt. But it still felt odd, wrong somehow, that he could feel hollow rather than sad.
‘Master Eldrian,’ a voice called from the door that looked over the hillside upon which sat his and his father’s humble home.
‘Please, just one last look. I don’t think I’ll see any of this for a while,’ replied Eldrian. How different might the northern lands look? They were colder, or so he had read. And some folk up there had paler skin from the shorter, darker days.
His eyes passed over the tangle of trees that sloped down gently towards acres of farmland. Myriad dots of livestock speckled against the green, some in vast masses as their herdsmen drove them on.
‘Apologies, Master Eldrian, but she thinks it may be time,’ said the apprentice.
Eldrian nodded and steeled himself. This was an inevitability, he knew. That didn’t make it easier. His hands gripped the roots of the oak tree in which he sat cradled. With a groan he pried himself free of the bark and turned to go inside.
The floorboards of their house creaked in all the usual places as Eldrian trudged through. So too did the shadows and light from outside fall no differently to normal. Almost insulting that their home of some twelve years offered no sign of respect. No acknowledgment of any kind.
The door to his father’s bedroom hung halfway open but Eldrian stepped around it rather than pushing it wider. He heard it creak behind him and only noticed then that the apprentice had followed.
On the bed, beneath piles of woolen blankets, lay his father. The man’s skin had lost much of the normal fairness that a Solar possessed. Instead it looked grey. A bit like a smear of porridge made from too coarse a grain. His eyes were sunken and closed and he lay so deep in the bed that it almost appeared to be swallowing him.
The symptoms had all pointed to a disease of some sort. Nobody had managed to figure out which. Even Eldrian had poured over their books and others, matching descriptions and finding new possibilities. All had been false hope.
‘His heart is beating but it’s nearly too faint even to hear,’ the healer explained.
Eldrian nodded. Not long now. He crept closer in, practiced feet maneuvering over the landscape of the floor. The hallway rug’s end, that knothole he’d lost a coin down six or seven summers ago, the other rug that lay beneath the bed. He leaned towards his father’s face and the frame of the bed dug into his legs.
‘Can he hear me still?’ Eldrian asked.
The healer nodded her head.
Everyone of us is a Solar, Eldrian realized. But all that healing magic couldn’t save him. Of course, he knew light magic didn’t work that way. Only medicine, and sound magic on rare occasion, could tackle anything past a disease’s symptoms. A small comfort.
A soft wheeze came from the bed and Eldrian saw that his father’s eyes were open. He leaned closer and listened but, for a while, the only sound came in the form of the faintest breathing.
‘I’m s-s… sorry, Anahid,’ Eldrian’s father croaked.
Eldrian recoiled. ‘What did he say?’ he asked the healer.
A shrug and a headshake formed the physical reply. Then, ‘Too whispered for me.’
‘That was a name. I’m sorry Anahid,’ said Eldrian.
‘Your mother?’
‘No.’ This time Eldrian shook his head. ‘We don’t know anyone called Anahid. At least, I don’t. Father. Father, who is Anahid?’
His eyes were open but blank as he stared at Eldrian. ‘Ana… Anahid,’ he breathed. The covers by his side shifted, collapsing as an arm emerged from underneath. The dying man’s trembling fingers crawled through the air and fell just short of touching his son’s face. ‘Should have t…t… told you…’ he wheezed. ‘Wrong about… this… I…’ Then the bed gave the slightest shake as muscles relaxed.
‘Father?’ Eldrian asked. He leaned in closer and peered into a set of empty eyes. ‘Father? Who’s Anahid? Told me what? Tell me now!’
‘You… your…’ Seconds passed before the room sighed with one less soul to fill it.
‘I’m here! Tell me now! Father, please! Tell me now! Who’s Anahid? Wh— who’s Anahid?’
‘He’s gone, young master,’ said the healer.
‘No, he can’t be.’ Not fair. ‘He had to tell me something. Tell me Father, please.’ Eldrian twisted around to look at the master and her apprentice in turn. ‘Did he recognize me? Did he know it was me he was talking to?’
They didn’t move. No words, no actions. No shaking or nodding heads. They only stared with as much acknowledgment as his father had offered.
Eldrian turned back to the man buried in the bed. His hands shook as he took his father by the shoulders, released, grabbed again. The same question kept flipping through Eldrian’s mind. The grief beast tried to rear its head but it choked instead. ‘Who is Anahid? Don’t go, tell me! Father, tell me! I’m here! What did you want to tell me?!’ Eldrian gave the man a gentle shake. A harder one. ‘Who is Anahid?’
A hand fell on his back. ‘Master Eldrian, we must not disturb the passed.’
‘But he saw this Anahid, not me. Why did you say Anahid, Father, tell me! Why did you wait till it was too late?’ cried Eldrian. His eyes began to sting and his throat felt as though it meant to clamp shut. ‘Who is Anahid?’
The hand on his back pulled more firmly. Eldrian shoved it away and ran. The home he had known all his life became a blur beneath movement and blinding tears. He had the vague sense that someone might be following him but he couldn’t tell who.
He can’t be gone, not yet. He wasn’t finished.
It finally hit him in the garden. He hadn’t yet woken up. Even through the tears he could see himself sitting beneath the tree. Father hadn’t finished because the dream hadn’t let him. He just needed a chance to try again.
I’m asleep, that’s all. This is just a bad dream, Eldrian thought as he ran faster to the spot. I’ll wake myself up and it will all be over.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked a panicked voice.
‘Hysterics from grief. Get him under control,’ panted another.
A force gripped Eldrian and he ground to a halt. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘This is a dream! Let me wake up. He didn’t see me! It’s just a dream!’
The earth came up fast and slapped him on the side of the head. Even through the pain he ranted. ‘He needs to tell me! Let me wake up! It’s all a dream! It’s all a dream!’
===
My dearest Eldrian,
It seems my time has reached an end. It pains me that I will leave you alone in this world. You’re a smart boy and you’ve made me more proud than you could imagine. But you’re a child yet and the Empire has its laws. When the day comes that I am no longer with you, you shall find a new home at the Children of Light orphanage and school. All the arrangements have been made. Our home will be rented until such a time as you have come of age and are ready to inherit it.
I go now to paradise.
Eldrian stared at the page a while longer, eyes too glazed over to discern the words through the coach’s shakes as it travelled tow
ards the orphanage. He’d read it a dozen times already. The first time had been the worst. Days later, going through Father’s room, packing up their life, and finding it tucked into a book on the dresser. That soaring moment of hope for a missing answer found. Then the crippling pits as the final words offered nothing that he hadn’t already known or guessed. The last little piece he had of his father, before illness numbed him to sense, and it said nothing.
Eventually he folded up the yellowing scrap and tucked it back inside his satchel. Sometimes the urge came to ball it up and hurl it out the window but he never did. That wouldn’t solve anything, even though it might be suitable. A useless end for a useless note.
Of course, he had already figured out why the note had nothing. Those final words, that message lost to the final moments, had all been a change of heart brought by the nearness of death. Father had never really meant to tell Eldrian anything. That only made it more curious and himself more frustrated. He forced it out of his mind.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care anymore. You should have told me sooner if it was so important.
A chest on the back of the coach contained everything else that Eldrian had brought. An entire life reduced to less than half a cubic arm-reach.
The open window promised to distract Eldrian but when he looked at the scene outside it only reminded him of the days before. They were traveling north and the journey had taken three days already. Plenty of time to grow weary of farmland, hamlets and the occasional fortress that stood guard over its surrounds. A white-frosted mountain range ran to their west. A rainbow of snow to rock to grass and foothills. If he had the desire, perhaps the name for the range would have come to him. The Pillarous Line, maybe, or was that further north? All the maps in his head seemed to have melted together without his notice.
‘We’ll be able to see it once we’ve crossed the next hill,’ said Paetin, sitting opposite.
Eldrian glanced at the Skytouched but nothing more. A slight man whose eyes looked as though they meant to retreat inside his head. He had a thin fuzz of hair that could have been black or dark brown, impossible to tell without it being longer.
‘It’s quite a sight, even from the ground,’ Paetin continued. ‘The folk around used to stare at it from their fields but they’ve since grown bored of looking. It’ll be fresh for you, mind.’
The one-sidedness of the conversation had been the norm for the trip. The only words that Eldrian cared about were the final ones his father had said. He looked at his hand as it clenched the edge of the carriage’s window. A chip marred the nail on his thumb. When had that happened?
‘Do you know anyone named Anahid?’ Eldrian asked as his eyes glazed over in a fixation on his hand.
Paetin hummed for a moment. ‘The name’s not ringing to me. Why do you ask?’
‘…No reason.’
The rolling crunch of metal wheels over the gravel-dirt road again took over, along with a dry-thudding beat of hooves. This white symphony had done wonders to stifle the world and keep Eldrian buried in his own thoughts.
‘I know you’re hurting, spark. You can’t fight it out. You’ve got to push through, ah?’
Eldrian heard the words but they weren’t true. He still didn’t feel the misery or confusion.
Anahid.
Why would you leave me like that? he thought and surprised himself at how sharp the words felt. But they were suitable. This person had no business in the final moments of his family. And father had no business raising it. Stupid, all of it, yet important just the same. The way the name had been spoken had left no doubt of that.
For the first two days of the journey, Eldrian had wondered near endlessly about that name. This morning he found himself awakening with a lot less care to spend on the matter. If it really was important, Father wouldn’t have waited until the last conceivable second to feel a flash of regret. So it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter and Eldrian wouldn’t let it.
This journey mattered. A trip to some orphanage in the backwater north of the Empire. Why not one of the perfectly good orphanages closer to home? There had to be at least one, right?
The word stupid came to mind again. He wanted to push the poisonous thought away but it felt more comfortable to keep close.
You shouldn’t have waited, Eldrian growled. Now I’ll never find out. And I don’t care.
‘Ah, there it is. See? I told you, a wonder of the north. You don’t realize how fortunate you are to have a place here.’ Paetin twisted away from the window and smiled.
Eldrian locked his eyes on the orphanage. He had to agree with the Skytouched, though he didn’t like it.
The manor of Children of Light stood in two halves on either side of a large, river-run ravine that Eldrian could already see starkly as they grew nearer. The structure on the side farthest had been built nearly a dozen reaches above its brother. Two towers grew among that portion of the home, one large and fitted with many a window that hinted to the life inside. But the other, far thinner, had either its curtains drawn or its windows boarded up.
Between the cliff sides the manor continued, not content to confine itself to a mere bridge to span the gaps. A long hall hung over the ravine, supported by vast beams connected to the walls of rock. Then came what Eldrian had to presume was the school portion of the manor. More modest in height, as much as four stories could be considered modest. The roof sloped ended and jutted at more angles and points than Eldrian could count from his current vantage.
An extensive garden surrounded the manor. He could see figures tending all manner of flora, so much of which looked to be fruit-bearing. In fact, there were people everywhere. In the grounds, through the windows, even on the roofs. The latter appeared to be cleaning or fixing up the dark slats that looked weather-worn in places and in need of repair. So too did the stone walls of the manor yearn for care.
Yet the strangest trait of the manor, one that Eldrian had never seen anyplace before, was the massive net that seemed to close it like a birdcage. It stood above the castle-like walls that rimmed the property, tethered to the battlements and held up by tree-like posts further in.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked as he pointed to the tangle of ropes or wires, too hard to tell which at this distance. The spaces between were so small that not even a Skytouched could squeeze out.
Paetin followed the finger and laughed. ‘The net? Children of Light happens to be on some kind of Vouiareli migration path or hunting stream. Without it they tear up the garden or worse.’
Eldrian had seen several sky snakes in the past but never in the wild. They were massive beasts with plenty of teeth. The way Paetin spoke made it sound like ‘worse’ had happened prior. Eldrian shuddered at the thought of a Vouiareli swooping down from the sky and whisking him away on its wings of wind.
The gates to Children of Light stood tall and flush with the surrounding framework for the netting. A crest had been crafted at its center, depicting two Kelads bowing towards a shining sun between them. The sun, as in so many other instances, had to represent Empress Dawn.
A gap formed in the crest as the wrought iron gates swung outwards. Eldrian expected them to make a terrible creak on their hinges but they didn’t. They were silent as a whisper. The absence of anyone opening them only added to the peculiarity but the obvious explanation was that a Solar someplace was swinging them with levitation.
Walls of hedges lined the driveway that looped around before the manor’s doors. Beyond them Eldrian could hear the activity of the gardeners. Snips of shears and thunks of mattocks filled the air, but no birds. The only signs of non-Kelad life came from the droni
ng hum of crickets and bees.
The Earthborn, who had been driving their coach, jumped down as Eldrian exited and moved to retrieve his luggage. Meanwhile, Eldrian stared up at the manor and the large, circular window that gazed down at him like a glassy eye. The sun’s glare masked whatever room lay beyond. Without knowing why, his vision wandered towards the smaller of the manor’s towers. Did someone live there? It had more than one room, judging by the way it jutted out in places.
‘Alright, spark, enough gawking. Let’s head in and get you settled,’ Paetin crunched past on the gravel, preceded by the Earthborn.
Eldrian lingered a second longer. A song had crept in on the breeze and he couldn’t tell where from. A Vocal, most likely, using their voice to see something distant. It came almost as a soothing sigh with the slightest echo.
===
She watched the boy as he trudged inside, just as she watched all the new arrivals. He looked boring. New and afraid, yes, but boring too. Still, she promised herself to look again some time later just in case things changed.
Instead she turned her voice, and vision, to the stable hands that were tending to the horses as they recovered from their journey. If any could hear her, they gave no sign. Some were habituated to her watching by now. Others jumped or flinched or kept on working with a tenacious resolve to pretend that they were, in fact, alone.
These stable hands did exactly that. Their brows creased as they cleaned hooves and their jaws flapped faster to drown her voice with their conversation. Nobody ever seemed to welcome her. Of course, she anticipated nothing less.
===
It wasn’t what he had been expecting. Twenty to a room above the cellar but below the ground. The gaps between the stone bricks, each a different size and shape and each nearly as big as he, were slimy with the damp. There were several oil lanterns hanging from the roof but they did a poor job at keeping anything lit.
None of the boys, with whom he would share the space for the next two years, were present at the moment.
‘They’ll not be in the dorms till after dinner when it’s lights out,’ Paetin had explained.
‘Are they in their classes now?’ Eldrian wondered.
‘They’re all about the manor doing their chores.’
‘Chores?’
‘This is a big place and we can’t afford people to maintain it. As way of earning your stay, there’ll be chores for you to do.’ With that out of the way, Paetin had left.
Once again Eldrian found himself struggling not to drown beneath the tide of his solitary thoughts. Perfect, father. Send me away to labour.
On the wall by the door hung a large board upon which lines and writing had been scratched out in chalk. When he moved closer, he realized it detailed the distribution of chores for the week. The days ran along the top while the work went down the left side. In the middle were all the names.
It struck Eldrian how many chores there seemed to be. Gardening, kitchen duty, general cleaning, general repairs, pest extermination, stable hands. Most of the chores had broad titles like these and a name accompanying that Eldrian presumed was the person to which the workers would report. His eyes moved down the board until he reached the bottom of the list of chores and he frowned. Girl in the tower, the final chore read. Only one kid seemed to be assigned it, the same for each day of the week.
On the seventh day of the cycle there were no names under any chore. None but the girl in the tower, that is. So sundays were free. When did schooling fit in?
Other than the board, the dormitory didn’t contain much to occupy his mind. Twenty beds, ten against each wall, with a chest at the end of each. Well, the luckier ones, of which Eldrian happened to be, owned a chest. Most of the children here must have come from poorer backgrounds, judging by the battered boxes in which they kept their worldly possessions. The worst off looked as though they had been cobbled together from scrap wood, even lacking a lid. But father had always told him not to judge others lest he find himself rewarded with the same adversity. Although, given the recent turn of events, that advice hadn’t done much good.
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