The Songbird

Chapter 9: Seeking

She didn't notice the draft stinging her skin.

She didn't pay attention to the rocky ground digging against her feet.

She barely gave the glittering jewels a second glance, knowing well enough now what was valued and what was scorned.

Mina could only go deeper, seeking out the most hidden part of the jewel caves so that no one would be alerted to what she had in mind. Darkness encroached in droves, but pockets of crystals caught a sprinkling of sunlight dripping through overhead cracks. They lit her way like dim lanterns, beckoning her along as she sought the heart of the cave. Mina never worried about getting lost; she'd learned long ago that as long as she could still feel the wind, she could find her way home.

But home wasn't what she desired at that moment.

Mina coveted an answer.

She walked until she felt sufficiently hidden, sure that no ears would be privy to her actions. She'd never encountered anyone in the caves before, but she wanted nothing to do with people who visited the surrounding forest. She wanted no sign of another soul, not so long as her own was riddled with one terrifying question.

Am I one of them?

It was all she'd ever wanted as a child. The grandest request she prayed for every night before The Great Dying etched itself into Enid's history. Such a simpler time, one where magic had wonder and Mina could ask to be part of it. But now? After everything she'd been forced to endure, she couldn't think of anything she wanted less.

You give yourself too much credit, Mina silently admonished. You only theorize. Nothing is fact. You'll have to try, first.

But try what? She wasn't exactly sure how to test herself or even what it was she was testing. All she knew was that it had something to do with her voice. The knight cited it as the sole reason for why he'd given her money, and she couldn't shake the empty look in people's eyes when they watched her, something she'd usually been too desperate to notice.

At least, until now.

But what with my voice? What do I do? All that surrounds me are rocks and empty air. How can I influence that?

Maybe she made a mistake. Maybe this was something that had to be done around people to work. But how would she make her voice do something extraordinary? She'd never tried to do anything intentionally, so how to go about it now that she did?

Images of her damaged room came back to mind, those cracks that grew with each passing night.

Mina didn't sing in her dreams.

She yelled. She screamed.

An idea settled, and she glanced upwards to make sure she wasn't in danger of a stalagmite falling from overhead. It was a ridiculous notion, dangerous even, but Mina needed the knowledge of whether her childhood desires had truly been ignored or not.

She took a breath, letting the air run down her throat and expand, coiling her voice like a bird about to take flight.

Mina screamed.

Louder than any scream she'd been conscious of in the past. A sound that sent shockwaves to her own ears and outward from her body. The entire cave seemed to fill with the sound of her, a projection of something that reverberated with both fear and uncertainty, something that sought an answer with damage.

In its wake, the ground shook underfoot.

Pebbles broke off from larger pieces of rock.

A nearby pocket of crystals burst.

And an entire wall of stone crippled, broken apart from the impact and raining jewels that had been hidden within.

Mina heaved when finished, hands clutching her chest as she sank to her knees. It wasn't the destruction she witnessed as a result, no matter how much terror it brought her. It was exhaustion that drove her to the ground, a tidal wave of it that was drowning her from the inside out. She couldn't stop it, couldn't fight the black stealing her vision as sight left and consciousness suddenly resided elsewhere.

She slumped forward, cheek colliding with the ground, gone to the world for a moment in time, only capable of one last thought before she became unaware of her own existence.

What have I become?

* * * * * * *

Worlds away, tucked inside her bedroom within Abbott's castle, Jesmyn woke in a cold sweat.

Her nightmare couldn't have been more clear.

She ran to find the King.