Echoes of Silence

  “Look, Echo,” Grandmother says again, and I have the energy to sit up and turn my head toward her voice. “Your father saved his power for you.”

  She stands, holding the lantern in front of her so the light drapes in a wide arc. Next to her is the man I have only heard stories about, the man I have only seen in a portrait, the man my mother left to find twenty-four years ago.

  “Father.” I stand to embrace him. “You healed me?”

  He nods as he strokes my hair and speaks in the musical language of Nyth. I push away from him, startled to hear such song-words from him. I didn’t know he hailed from Nyth. “Father?”

  He taps my temple. “Live,” he says, this time in a language I understand. He taps my collarbone, indicating my heart. “Love.” He releases me and steps away. Grandmother and the lantern are nowhere to be found. Only midnight blueness surrounds us. The High Castle and the High King are worlds away.

  “Where are we?” I ask my father, but he’s taken another step backward. “Where are you going?” My voice pitches into hysteria. I don’t want him to leave, not now. He possesses powerful magic to be able to bury himself for Grandmother to find. I need him to locate Cris, to defeat the High King of a country I didn’t know I belonged to.

  “Echo, you hail from Nyth,” he says, and I love the powerful qualities of his voice. “Fulfill the prophecy.” One more step, and the shadows claim my father.

  I move forward to go with him, a fist squeezing in my chest. I strain to see through the murkiness, and I watch him link arms with a dark-haired woman. My mother. Grandmother takes the place on his right side, and Olive emerges on his left. Together, the four of them stride toward the horizon.

  “Wait!” I yell, running now.

  “Return,” my father bellows, and I’m yanked through the air in the opposite direction from my family.

  #

  The iron gates of the High Castle shone like oil in the moonlight. Everything that hurt before had been healed by my father. My father, who was Nythinian nobility, who possessed such powerful magic he’d saved it for me to use twenty-four years after his death, who I desperately wished I’d a chance to know.

  My heart struggled against the memory of my parents, happy and together. Of sensing Grandmother’s magic. Of seeing Olive reunited with everyone and knowing she’d finally found peace.

  Beyond the gates, the entrance courtyard bore no evidence of battle. I couldn’t see a single magician or the fallen soldiers of Umon. I strode forward on strong legs, surprised to find a billowing, white robe hugging my shoulders.

  Through the gates, I found my legions of magicians clawing at their throats. Castillo’s eyes bulged, his face purpling with the lack of oxygen. I flicked my wrist and pealed one loud note to clear the suffocation spell. Gasps and coughing filled the courtyard.

  “Where’s Cris?” I called into the courtyard, knowing the High King had magical means to hear me. “I want my husband, whole and happy. You have two minutes to deliver him.”

  I turned my attention to the magicians recovering from the spell. “Friends,” I said. “Do you remember the notes? The assignments and pitch with which to begin?”

  Someone pressed through the crowd and broke into the open. “Oake.” I ran to him and threw my arms around him in a fierce hug. He held me tight, but only for a moment. He gestured to his throat, his lips moving but no sound coming out.

  “You cannot speak?”

  He shook his head and gestured to the two groups of magicians on either side of the gates.

  “None of them can speak?” My fingers felt numb. I stepped back, not able to feel the ground beneath my feet. Someone touched my shoulder, and I turned in that direction. Castillo slipped his hand into mine and mouthed one word: Sing.

  “I can’t,” My voice fell from my lips, heavy and defeated.

  Castillo covered his heart with his free hand, his meaning clear. I will help you. Watching him, I felt my father touching my collarbone and telling me to love. I heard him speaking in the native language of Nyth. I felt a stirring in my stomach as my magic reared. I’d never felt displaced in this northern country—because a Nythinian’s blood ran in my veins.

  I squeezed Castillo’s hand,

  I opened my mouth,

  I sang.

  Fifty

  My voice rang through the still night, filling the spaces between the cobbles and soaring over the rooftops. I held each note longer than necessary, drawing life from the lands and infusing it into my voice. After the fifth note, I paused to breathe, and when I started the scale again, Castillo opened his mouth to sing with me.

  Only the sound of my singing echoed against the balconies, but the power of Castillo’s silent voice filled the sky. My magic danced inside, the same way it had when we bonded, the same way it did when he and I sang spells together.

  I moved into the notes again, pressing my eyes closed and feeling for the magic in the High Castle. Behind my eyelids, green light sparked. When I looked, the sky smoked, the gray mass marring the clear night. I glanced down the row of magicians and found them all singing with silent voices.

  My heart skipped a beat as we ended the chorus and the courtyard vibrated with echoes of silence. I swallowed, unsure of what to say or do next. I glanced at Castillo, and he shook his head. Next to him, Matu stared straight ahead, watching the tallest spire as if it might explode.

  I followed his gaze back to the High Castle, horrified as the spire morphed into a metallic cobra and lunged toward us. I screeched a note from the depths of my gut, and the snake shattered into shards of light and smoke. I held the note through the explosion, raising one hand to speed the magic in its debilitating effect.

  I found Castillo’s arm up too, and I muttered a removal spell and sent it through the magicians in the courtyard.

  “Well done, princess,” Castillo said, his voice slightly lower than normal.

  “Now what?” I asked. “I caged his magic, but it wasn’t enough. He still possessed enough power to form a spell.” A hole formed in my heart, and I suddenly knew what needed to be done. I’d used my head to live.

  Now I needed to use my heart to love.

  “I need Cris.” I shook my hand out of Castillo’s. “I’ll be back.” I took off at a run, the white robe flying behind me.

  “Echo!” Castillo yelled.

  “Hurry,” Matu called as I leaped the first bench. “Hurry!”

  #

  Hurry, Echo, hurry, Echo, hurry, hurry, hurry.

  I used Matu’s warning to feed my adrenaline, to guide my feet. I uttered direction spell after location spell, turning down halls when it felt right and climbing a steep set of stairs hidden behind a corner. A door sat on a landing, and my heart pumped into overdrive. I knew Cris was concealed inside the room.

  I also knew the door would be locked, and the High King had taken it one step further and removed the doorknob. I stood on the landing, my chest heaving, my fingers twitching, without a spell in my throat.

  I knocked. “Cris?” I pressed my mouth into the crack along the doorjamb. “Are you in there?”

  “Echo?”

  My stomach flipped. “Can you open the door?”

  “No, you must leave.”

  “I need you.” I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the wooden door.

  “My father will kill you.” Cris sounded louder now, closer. “Please, you cannot be here.”

  “Step back from the door.” I sang a song to produce fire, and I pressed my hand to the middle of the door, where the wood smoked and caught the flame.

  I retreated down the steps while the door burned, and a minute or two later, the smoke thickened to the point where I had to drop to the floor to keep breathing oxygen. Crackling flames and snarling pops filled the air, and the heavy scent of fire seared my throat.

  “Cris!” I called.

  He materialized out of the smoke, reaching for me and pulling me with him down the stairs. “You’re insane.”

  “T
he spells aren’t working without you.”

  “They certainly won’t work with me, dearest. Have you forgotten I possess no magic?”

  I stumbled after him as he made precise turns and led me down unfamiliar hallways. “Have you forgotten that you once did?”

  He stopped in a deserted corridor and faced me, his eyes unreadable but a muscle in his jaw working overtime. “How do you know such things?”

  “I entered your mind, curious to know why you and Castillo were so close. I saw the day you died and he sang you back to life.”

  “Did you see my mother?” he whispered.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “That magic has been all used up.” He swallowed hard. “And there’s no way we are getting close enough to my father for me to touch him.”

  “Yes, there is that,” I said, waving his concerns away. “But I meant the magic you possess simply because you come from him.”

  “What?”

  I pulled him after me, noting the hotness of the stones against my bare feet and the way Cris favored his right leg. “I cannot explain it, but I need you in the courtyard for the spells to work.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You do have some power, because you are the High King’s heir.” I didn’t know what would happen once we returned to the courtyard. But I knew I came from a powerful Nythinian magician, and so did Cris. Our blood would fill in the cracks. It had to.

  Each breath stuck in my throat, each step brought me closer to an unsure end. I simply wanted the confrontation to occur so I could stop worrying about what might or might not happen.

  So when the High King materialized in front of us, blocking our exit from a torch-lit corridor, a strange sense of relief swam through me. The High King stood strongly, his face obscured inside the shadows of his hood but his identity undeniable because of the royal cape he wore.

  Silence pulsed down the hall, a sure sign that the High King had performed a nefarious spell. I quickly established what protections I could, weaving them around Cris and I and sending a song to Castillo.

  The High King lowered his hood to reveal his half snake, half cat eyes and a supreme glare of displeasure. The glimpse of the doors that led back to the courtyard vanished as black-robed men filed in behind the High King. His magicians—the two dozen who’d sung Olive into death.

  “Where are your subjects, Princess?” he asked.

  I sang my response, not answering his question but sending a confusion spell at him. Tension radiated from Cris, and I fed off it, trapping it in the next chant to use against the High King.

  My spell-songs seemed to have no effect on the High King or his magicians. I quieted my voice and hummed the torches along the walls into infernos. Perhaps Castillo would feel the desperation in such a spell; perhaps Matu could sense where we were and that we were surrounded; perhaps Oake could voice a song to debilitate the High King.

  I didn’t have a plan beyond retrieving Cris, and now that we couldn’t get back to the collective power of my militia, I didn’t know what else to do.

  Live.

  Love.

  I heard my father’s words in my head, but they didn’t paint a proper picture for escape. Grandmother had taught me to love life because of singing. Oake had fostered my voice, allowing me a glimpse of what love could be.

  The High King flicked his fingers at someone behind him.

  I opened my mouth and sang.

  The force of my spell hit the advancing magicians full force and drove them back. My voice echoed off the walls, and I sang my way through the harmony of a binding spell, adding it to the melody still ringing in the air. Ropes sprang forth and strangled the legs and arms of the High King’s magicians.

  He moved his mouth, warding off my spell. He alone remained untied as the magic began to fade. I didn’t let the song sink all the way to the floor before calling on it again, begging it to extract the power from the High King’s voice.

  I sang the five notes backward, urging my power to overwhelm his. That tickling wickedness bloomed inside, and I knew I could sing the High King into death—if I’d just give in to the same brand of magic he used.

  I started the backward scale again as the High King’s magic streamed from him. He sang a spell to reclaim it, only adding fuel to my cause, only draining himself further with each note. He finally clamped his mouth shut—and I reversed the spell.

  He wanted his magic back? He could have it—but now it belonged to me, and it glowed with violet and cream light, no darkness in sight. I forced it on him, feeling the floor beneath my feet begin to vibrate.

  The door across the great hall burst open and magicians streamed through, led by Castillo. The High King spun, twisted his hands, and shot a spell toward his son.

  Castillo ducked and rolled, avoiding the destructive spell. I clutched Cris’s hand as I watched the power strike Matu in the chest. He fell slowly as though through water, his face frozen in shock, his eyes empty before they disappeared from my view. Mari screamed, slicing the spell with her anguish, as she dropped to the ground next to Matu, already waving her hands to begin a healing spell.

  My chest felt like someone had punched the air from my lungs. Tears streamed down my face and yet I started the scale again. A chorus of voices joined mine, causing the echoing in the great hall to reach deafening proportions. The High King bent under the weight of the sound, but he managed to send another spell, which disabled several magicians.

  We began the scale again, and I squeezed Cris’s hand in a silent plea for him to raise his voice in spell-song. He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. I nodded, still singing.

  He needed to sing, too. The spell against his blood wouldn’t take root without his voice bridging the way.

  The dozen bound magicians burst into ribbons of cloth and feathers with the strength of our spell.

  My legs felt weak. My voice hoarse. Still, Cris did not sing.

  Black feathers drifted to the floor, landing on the empty bindings where the magicians had been. The High King tilted his head back and bellowed into the great hall, but the powerful light magic I’d sang into his being didn’t respond to such wickedness.

  I breathed to begin the scale again, and this time Cris fitted his voice into the spaces between mine.

  The High King spun toward us, his eyes wild and huge. Saliva, dark as tar, dripped from his mouth. His lips moved, and before we could finish the fifth note, he funneled into himself and vanished.

  Fifty-One

  The sound of the spell-song reverberated through the rafters while I pressed my face into Cris’s chest. He’d cut off his singing and spun toward me, gripping my arms like his life depended on holding on to me, when his father fell.

  Whispers reached my ears of the High King’s death, of the missing pulse in his neck, of the multitude of others who’d fallen.

  “Shh,” I said to Cris, trying to quiet the shaking in his shoulders. I gently extracted myself from his arms and stepped away. “Stay here.”

  “No,” he said, a quiver in his word. “I’ll come with you.”

  We met Castillo kneeling over the robes of the High King, complete with the purple cape. He glanced up at us. “He’s definitely dead.” He wore no emotion in his face, though I suspected he must be feeling something. “No pulse.”

  “A body?” I asked.

  Castillo nodded and moved the robe to reveal the High King’s cruel face.

  I slipped my hand into Cris’s and tugged him away from his father’s body and toward the doors of the great hall. I found Matu there, his eyes closed now and his hand clutched in Mari’s.

  She hiccupped. “I couldn’t heal him,” she said. “Just like I could not heal Castillo.” She looked at me with puffy eyes, tears leaking out of the corners. “Remember that, Echo? I couldn’t save him. But you could. You can save Matu, too.” She reached for me, drawing me to the floor beside her.

  “I cannot heal him.” The crack in my voice betrayed my grief.


  Mari shook her head, crying harder. “You can. I’ve seen you weave magic. I’ve heard your voice. You can save him.”

  Her words needled me, the way she kept saying save instead of heal. A pit opened in my stomach. I couldn’t do what she wanted me to do, and I wondered how many more would think I could.

  I glanced around and saw many watching me with open curiosity. I had my answer.

  “He’s dead.” I stormed away, my white robe billowing around my ankles.

  #

  I barricaded myself in Cris’s rooms, where once again, we took comfort in each other. He seemed content to brood in silence while I couldn’t stop talking. I asked him many things about Nyth, about the progression of kings, about his lineage and the other noble bloodlines. I discovered that the del Toro line had ended with Father, when he’d chosen to leave Nyth and settle with Mother in Iskadar.

  I told Cris about the spell-songs I’d spun, and the rebounded images, and how much I knew of his previous magic.

  “Did you know Oake would be at the uprising?” I asked.

  Cris tucked my hair behind my ear. “I asked him not to come, but he’s as stubborn as Castillo.” He smiled. “He said he wouldn’t stay behind, that he hadn’t worked for fifteen months to hear about the uprising from someone else.” Cris took a moment to breathe deeply. “Even when I said you’d be most displeased, he didn’t sway in his decision.”

  “When did you first speak with him?”

  “Several weeks before the hunters arrived in Iskadar.” Cris’s eyes grew wistful, then fierce. “Castillo and I have known about the prophecy for years, though we didn’t know who to search for. Only when my father discovered it did he send hunters to the villages, looking for anyone stemming from the dead-ended nobility lines. We knew it was only a matter of time before he found the girl spoken of.”

  Cris slipped his fingers through mine and squeezed. “I did not know it was you until I met with Oake in Iskadar.”

  “Did you ever see me in Iskadar?” I asked, wondering how far back this ruse went.