I Sing
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The Girl Who Must Not Sing Ch. 08 free porn video
Chapter Eight
‘Sire, I told him how far the rot went. I told him it had spread further underneath the slats.’
‘So either he didn’t listen or he forgot. Whichever the case, it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. Clearly master Yoled cannot be trusted with the more difficult tasks, correct, Fiye?’
‘Yes Sire, but I did tell him.’
‘I don’t doubt the fact. But should this instance ever come round again, make sure to tell both of them. We can’t trust the orphans to relay the correct information to one another. They’re only children.
‘Yes Sire.’
‘Good, that will be all. Your roofing crew is likely waiting and there’s much more to be done now. Which brings me to you, Paetin.’
‘The boy’s leg is coming along well but the other one hasn’t awoken yet.’
‘Well there’s not much we can do about that until we can find a proper alchemist. Soon, I should hope, or the boy may have to graduate early.’
‘Another thing, Sire. The girl’s earmuffs again…’
‘More with them? I thought Miss Belamy took care of it.’
‘She did, Sire. I made certain she did it right. The wounds were healed completely so these are new ones.’
‘In that case, are we wrong to be blaming the earmuffs?’
‘My thoughts exactly, Sire. I think something may be troubling her.’
===
He hadn’t moved much this morning. His leg still hurt, most likely. But the mean one had been working her magic over it for several hours so it must be nearly healed by now. The other boy, meanwhile, remained asleep or unconscious. Neither were particularly interesting so the girl moved her voice to something else.
So long had she seen with the earmuffs on that she could hardly remember how things were supposed to appear. Could other Vocals see more than the narrow tunnel that made up her field of view? If so, she envied them. All but the closest objects looked, to her, as though they were at the end of a long, fuzzy tube. The sides made anything in her peripherals impossible to discern until she turned her voice to it.
The girl shuffled off her bed, already made, and padded over to one of the boarded-up windows. She sat in the chair waiting beside it and sent her voice through one of the many slivered openings where the big sheet of wood didn’t quite meet the frame it meant to cover.
The orphans were already beginning their toiling in the garden and some of them jumped or startled as her voice passed over. One boy, leaning over the pond to fish out a branch, managed to fall in and surfaced with a splutter. She laughed at him and she made sure he heard. He would have done the same were the tables turned.
The minutes rolled by quickly as she watched the happenings of the house. The adults didn’t mind her watching so much. Only if she watched for too long and only if they weren’t the bad woman.
A tap on the girl’s shoulder brought her out of watching. Without turning around, she cast her voice towards her visitor. Paetin. Then she turned around.
Can we talk? motioned his lips.
The manor’s stories called so she didn’t reply.
Paetin frowned. You’re too old for this game. I know you can see what I’m saying.
Something important then. She wanted eyes so that she could roll them. The other races didn’t realize how lucky they were to be able to convey emotions with the expressions on their faces rather than words. ‘Fine,’ she said with utmost care.
Paetin walked back to where another chair stood and he dragged it over before sitting down. How are the earmuffs?
‘Bad.’
I can see.
Absentmindedly she reached up to brush a wisp of dry-crimsoned hair away from the tight, metal prisons.
But they’ve rarely been a problem in the past. Now twice in as many weeks?
Again she had nothing to say. Paetin could guess it if he thought himself so clever.
What’s wrong, child? Would you like to tell me?
No.
You know Miss Belamy has to be the one to heal you every time this comes up. I didn’t realize you liked her so much.
Nothing.
Paetin let out a deep exhale. We’re here to help you. When you remember that, we’ll talk again.
She didn’t watch him go. Her voice returned to the world outside and she decided to travel as far from the manor as she could. She walked her vision through the orchards, passing over the occasional orphan and amusing herself at the few who dropped their burdens when they sensed her focus.
Through the fence she passed and into the wheat fields. The golden strands waved and clouded her vision which bothered her in a way it wouldn’t have without the earmuffs. Yet another reminder of the shackles that plagued her life. So why hadn’t it been a problem until recently?
She shrugged the question away and continued her journey. This path she had wandered before and she knew the town of River Run stood a ways downhill. How amusing it had been to shock those folk with her voice. But Paetin had gotten wind of it somehow and they didn’t want her doing it anymore. Instead she flowed uphill until she found a path between the fields. It looked to have been trodden recently. Strands of grass were making their gradual unflattening off the packed dirt. The crushed shapes clearly belonged to no beast.
Her voice wandered on, meandering through the lanes. At last she came upon a Solar, strolling with a stick in one hand and a dog at his side. The breeze must have been making quite a hiss through the wheat as it took the farmer nearly a minute before he flinched and looked around.
His lips moved. Hello? Who’s there.
She said nothing, content instead to simply watch for a while. When the farmer did nothing else interesting, she moved on.
A fence came into sight. The boundary of his property? The girl flowed over it to a place where the wheat didn’t grow. The earth here had been ground free of grasses by the passing of wagons and horse hooves. She considered both directions but decided to continue uphill, away from River Run. Eventually the curve of the ground began to shallow until it stopped completely at the peak. Any other Kelad, Vocals included, might stand up here and stare out over the view. Not her, she struggled enough to see this spot at all. The blurring had begun. Her travels were reaching the limits of her voice.
She slipped across an animal that slept in the curling roots of a tree. She didn’t know the creature’s name. It had thick, brown fur, massive claws on its forepaws and two tails. Its ears folded back as she looked at it. Then its head, on a long neck, lifted from its paws and it glanced around. The creature pulled back its lips to bare teeth and a silent growl emerged.
The girl didn’t fear the creature, she wanted to play with it. To rub her fingers through its fur and scratch its chin. She’d seen other folk do the same with animals. Why should this one be any different?
Her voice returned to the darkness of her bedroom. Several hours must have passed as she felt painfully stiff. A walk around the tower? That would be nice.
The orphans’ jobs must have shuffled around recently as the gardeners all looked different. The girl’s heart rose a little when she realized her holiday would be coming up. A chance to be free of these wretched earmuffs. A chance to go out into the garden. A chance to hear again.
===
Breakfast passed by in the infirmary and, after another agonizing session with Miss Belamy, a jailer sent Eldrian on his way. Two days of bedridden healing sessions yet he still needed a crutch to limp towards the eating hall where lunch would soon appear. Despite the pain, he had to admit that the chief child wrangler had done an impressive job. She clearly had a strong grip on light magic to have been able to heal such an injury so quickly. Full recovery would take a while longer.
‘Hoy, shrimp!’
Eldrian flinched as Iyda strode past and slapped him on th
e back. ‘Hoy,’ he mumbled.
‘Miss Belamy didn’t hurt you too bad, did she? I remember I cut my hand on kitchen duty one time and she folded it back up so fast it hurt more than the knife.’
He smiled at the imagery but shook his head. ‘Nah, it’s fine now.’
‘Cause if it’s not, I could always show her a thing or two about pain.’ Iyda punched one hand into the palm of the other several times.
‘Show who about pain?’ asked Miss Belamy as she rounded the corner ahead.
‘The girl in the tower,’ Iyda replied without missing a beat. ‘She prola ripped the roof out from under this shrimp when she saw him up there.’
‘Indeed she might have,’ mused Belamy before stalking past.
Iyda watched the woman go, twin ribbons trailing from her hair, and stayed silent for several seconds after, just to be sure. ‘She’s like a ghost, ah? How does she always know?’
Eldrian shrugged as well as he could when one arm kept his balance.
Some kind of salad seemed to be today’s fare. Iyda shoved a younger kid aside so that she could sit with Eldrian at the lower end of the table.
‘Otherwise they might think to swipe your food since you’re weak,’ she explained.
He didn’t know whether she intended that to be nice or not. Too complicated to think about right now. ‘What job are you on now?’ he asked instead.
‘Room cleaning. It’s boring cause there’s never anything to break or stomp on. And there’s nothing wrong with dirt anyway.’
Eldrian nodded, not necessarily in agreement.
They finished eating but when the time came to go to their jobs, two problems arose. The first, nobody had yet approached him with his placement for the day. Or the month, if that stage had arrived. The second problem, the bigger of the two, were the jailers who entered at that moment, led by Paetin.
The Skytouched clapped his hands together in a single, booming crash. ‘Attention, children. There will be a vacation day today. You should all know the rules, no going outside and no wandering to the upper manor.’
The silence of the orphans maintained until the jailers had safely left earshot. Then a cloud of excited murmuring took over.
‘What’s a vacation day?’ Eldrian asked through the buzz.
‘It’s for the girl. They let her sit in the gardens all day. Sometimes they even put a mask over her mouth and take her earmuffs off if she wants to hear instead of see.’ After explaining, Iyda twisted away to chatter to some girl from her dorm.
So they were giving the girl a break from her prison. It sounded dangerous but if they were gagging her as Iyda said perhaps it wouldn’t be a problem.
One by one the children milled out from the eating hall, coming up with all sorts of ideas on how to spend the day. With the outdoors off limits, the hallways of the manor ended up being rather crowded. So many orphans flowed in a single direction, towards the structure’s western side. The library? It couldn’t be. Not when half the children struggled with reading to such a degree.
By virtue of being pushed along, largely owing to injuries, Eldrian found himself traveling with the children to whatever destination they had in mind.
They wanted to see her, he realized at last. Groups of children crowded near the windows overlooking the garden from the second floor, their noses pressed against the glass.
‘Where is she?’ asked a child who looked to be about seven.
‘Prola not let out yet,’ answered the boy next to her.
The minutes ticked by with Eldrian wondering if he should really join the others in watching. The library called and so did a dozen other opportunities. And Yoled still slept. They needed to help him. But just as he was about to peel away from his spot by the large, paneled windows, the girl appeared.
A procession travelled with her, led by Sire Mastro who held the girl’s hand. The sun stained her ebony hair and the traces of blood from before were no longer present. Her black occumarks looked sad in this light. Almost as though she had cried tears of liquid shadow.
Gagged indeed was the girl. A knot of cloth secured her words and wrapped around her head. What a vacation…
Sire Mastro whispered something to her and she nodded. They moved past the first pond towards the farther reaches of the grounds, ultimately stopping by the tree that he, Iyda and Yoled had lazed under a few days ago.
The girl smoothed her plain pants and she sat among the ivy with her legs folded up. Blind. Sire Mastro left her then but a pair of jailers stayed behind, though they waited at a distance.
The girl didn’t move for a minute. Then for five. Then ten. She merely sat and waited, listening to the world around her.
One by one the orphans left when they realized that she had no intention of putting on a show. But Eldrian stayed. And he wondered what the girl’s life must be like. He wondered how a world always half-sensed would feel. Was she happy?
He wondered these things as the sun slowly set and orange stained the sky. Even as his legs and back grew stiff he wondered on. But he didn’t know why.
===
‘Dajoo know where they’re goh put you for the first month?’ asked Ajan, his voice slicing smoothly through the dorm’s morning chatter that went on beside them.
Eldrian shook his head and looked at his ankle. A long, fleshy scar marked where the skin had ruptured and sent a bit of bone poking out. Now he only had the faint ghosts of pain and a limp when standing. The crutch wasn’t really necessary anymore. ‘I didn’t see all the jobs yet.’
‘They’ll prola give you one anyway. That’s what they’ve done before, I think.’ Ajan moved away after that. The call to breakfast had sounded a minute ago and all the boys were steadily heading on their way.
With a faint hiss, Eldrian stood up. The ankle still stung a little and it felt odd to walk on. Such a fast recovery was bound to have some strange, lingering effects. But they were better than months of being bedridden, maybe longer.
That thought dragged Yoled up with it. Still unconscious and showing no signs of awakening.
‘I’ve no idea why,’ Miss Belamy had replied when asked. Her flat tone made it impossible to tell whether or not she cared. But she had to, right? Even if only for the sake of a healer’s ego.
At any rate, whatever healing Yoled required happened to be beyond anything that anyone at the manor could produce. Visible, physical injuries were easy compared to unseen ailments of the mind. And, as time went on, it became increasingly definite that this was what afflicted the flit.
Breakfast passed slowly and alone. Iyda had her friends from her dorm to keep her company at the other end of the eating hall. None of the other boys that Eldrian shared a room with seemed interested in reaching out as Yoled had. Such was the quiet in his tiny corner of the world that Eldrian barely noticed when the rest of the orphans filed out to their jobs.
‘Cleaning today.’ Having said those two words, and nothing more, the jailer retreated back down the hall to wherever he’d originated.
It took a fair degree of wandering before Eldrian managed to locate the rooms that the cleaning crew were up to. From there, the process seemed simple. Wash everything, clean everything. Make the beds, sweep the floors, dust surfaces. The work, and the fact that Eldrian was placed on a different detail, meant that the chance to speak to Iyda never arose.
His hands ached and his knees stung by the time the day came to an end. For the first time Eldrian noticed how much less the eating hall buzzed with chatter after working for so long.
‘It’s not that,’ said a boy next to him. ‘They’re probably picking a new carer for the girl tonight.’
‘Why?’ Eldrian asked. He’d only spoken up with an absent mind but now the conversation had shot to a far more interesting place.
‘They do every month.’
‘No, why does that make eve
ryone quiet?’
‘In case they get in trouble and get volunteered for the job.’
Eldrian leaned high on the bench and peered over the heads of the other orphans. Now that his attention had been placed on the right track, it seemed obvious. So many children looked anxious, their eyes either darting to the hallways or looking blankly forwards. Certainly nobody seemed to care so much over an accidental spill. And Dodeb nowhere to be seen. Or was the girl’s dinner occupying him?
‘When do they—’
‘Attention, students.’
Like panicked sheep, every head jolted towards the south-west hallway. There stood Paetin with two other jailers at his back. Others stood guard over the remaining ways out.
‘Again a month has passed and again your jobs have changed.’ Paetin’s eyes wandered the hall, pausing on nobody. ‘All but one, that is. There are a few who’ve joined us since so I’ll remind you all. The girl requires a new caretaker. Whoever is chosen shall be tasked with bringing her meals and whatever else comes up. If none step forwards, a volunteer will be chosen.’
Paetin continued to sweep his gaze back and forth over the children. He almost looked like a farmer deciding which of his herd were ready for slaughter. ‘You there. Your name?’
The young sprout who flinched under the man’s gaze, uttered a peep and shivered to her feet. ‘Celiope, mister.’
‘Well Celiope you’re about to make a new friend. You’ve been selected as the girl’s caretaker.’
Celiope cringed. She shook her head, not to disagree but to dispel the bad dream. It didn’t work and tears started to run. Did they really expect someone so young, maybe nine, to do the right job? Perhaps fear would be the incentive.
‘That is, if nobody wishes to volunteer on your behalf.’ Again moved Paetin’s predatorial surveyance across the eating hall. His eyes seemed to flicker across those of every child, challenging them to step up to the call.
When Eldrian fell beneath them, he suddenly wanted to answer. Stand up, say ‘yes, I’ll look after her’.
But she might still be mad at me. He thought back to the verge of eruption that she had seemed on during their last encounter.
‘Nobody? In that case, I’m sorry to say it’s you, Celiope. Dodeb will explain the details now and help you on the first day.’
The poor girl shuffled out from her bench, everyone in the eating hall watching on. She walked over to where Dodeb stood, then waited. Tears stained her face and made little trails through the thin layer of grime. How long had she lived here to know the process?
‘The rest of you may return to your—’
‘Wait!’
Eldrian looked around, startled by his own voice. He’d stood up. When had that happened? ‘I’ll do it instead. She doesn’t have to.’
What am I saying? he wondered. But he looked at Celiope and the way her chest rose and fell in tiny trembles. She didn’t deserve this.
The corners of Paetin’s mouth curled up for a moment. ‘Cruel of you to let Celiope suffer for so long. Why do you want to take her place?’
Eldrian shrugged. He wanted to think that he would have done the same for any orphan but, in truth, he didn’t know. Maybe he wanted to be a hero like in the stories. Bossman had already denied one attempt. I’ll save you from this, Eldrian thought as he looked across the dining hall at all the surprised faces. This is your home, not mine. Not mine, father.
But that reason rang hollow. Maybe he wanted to apologise to the girl. To see if she was okay. Everyone here seemed to treat her like some creature in a menagerie. Then again, she was a prisoner. A killer. Did she not deserve her lot?
No reason, no matter how big or small, felt wholly true to Eldrian. They attacked him together to force his hand. And in some twisted way, likely no different to the orphans gawking at her earlier, he wanted to see her again. So he lied instead. ‘Celiope’s too young. She might make a mistake.’
Paetin’s considering eyes remained locked with his for a few moments more. ‘Alright children, swap places,’ the Skytouched man said at last.
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